SparkFun Inventors Kit Is 'Clever'
erco
Posts: 20,259
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1362&doc_id=232310&
An Arduino-based WAM clone is "clever" and stealing headlines!
Time to turn on the charm, Parallax marketing! I still say your WAM kit is awesome. But if it takes targeting 5-7 year-olds to bask in the spotlight, it might be time for a makeover of the material and packaging to get that idea across. Simplification is good, you'll pull in lots of Chip-o-Phobics along with the kiddies.
A "Science Fair" kit might be a good umbrella or place to start. And throw in some plastic accessories to get them started. A superball and a pinball flipper to attach to a servo. And a propeller. A real plastic bladed propeller that pushes air from a motor! And an IR remote. THAT's instant magic.
Sell the sizzle, not the steak!
An Arduino-based WAM clone is "clever" and stealing headlines!
Time to turn on the charm, Parallax marketing! I still say your WAM kit is awesome. But if it takes targeting 5-7 year-olds to bask in the spotlight, it might be time for a makeover of the material and packaging to get that idea across. Simplification is good, you'll pull in lots of Chip-o-Phobics along with the kiddies.
A "Science Fair" kit might be a good umbrella or place to start. And throw in some plastic accessories to get them started. A superball and a pinball flipper to attach to a servo. And a propeller. A real plastic bladed propeller that pushes air from a motor! And an IR remote. THAT's instant magic.
Sell the sizzle, not the steak!
Comments
Arduino is a perfect fit too since it was designed for non-techies and it's target audience as well.
http://www.parallax.com/StoreSearchResults/tabid/768/List/0/SortField/4/ProductID/506/Default.aspx?txtSearch=PE+Kit
Parallax has had the concept for years..
What sells this isn't the kit itself its the "hype" and this..
http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorial/AIK/ARDX-EG-SPAR-WEB-REV10.pdf
I've been chasing this concept myself for a while now..
http://www.gadgetgangster.com/tutorials
OBC
A two dollar PIC with BASIC (equivalent of a bootloader) is cheaper than Arduino.
People aren't learning coding with cut and paste code and they aren't learning wiring or soldering with a pre-made shield.
The only hard part is convincing people to buy a $60 Pikit 2 but spread among a handful of PICs, you don't have to spend the $60 for a programmer but you have to spend $30 every time you buy an Arduino.
I'm glad people have that kind of money to just buy whatever to save them wiring, prototyping and coding but the result is not learning to do everything yourself.
A ten dollar chip means buying a $50 prototyping board. Stick with what is cheap and you won't be losing money out of your pocket.
I, of course, like the PEK better, but I think it would compare better if it included the extras they included.
Clever is as clever does. Back in 2002 or so, Nathan Seidle started SparkFun, and I started Budget Robotics. We even had the same Web host and shopping cart software, and every once in a while we exchanged product ideas via email. An early offering of his was a "robot experimenter's kit" consisting of a long solderless breadboard, a couple of surplus motors, and assorted odds and ends. It was simple and easily definable, if far from novel.
Ideas are like viruses and children -- they'll keep growing in the right environment. I seem to remember hearing in a 2009 video that SparkFun was up to $15 or $20 million a year. Nate employs about 85 people, last time I heard, and the business keeps growing. I'm still BR's only employee, and my growth rate looks like a flat road on a flat desert on a very flat planet!
Now, who's the clever one here?!
To be fair to myself, I do other things for a living, and make robots (and write books about 'em) as a hobby. Still, you can't fault success. If the AIK is a knock-off, and I'm not sure it is, what counts is the combination of things they offer. The BOE-Bot wasn't the first robot kit to ever come out, and you can hardly consider that its design has a lot of Wow Factor. But I wouldn't be surprised if it outsold all the other educational robotics kits from other sources put together. It's the solid metal chassis, the overall design that's ideal for classroom use, the BS2, the BOE board, and especially it's the documentation.
We all know the PropBOE is coming out, and likely a PropBot, full robotics classroom curriculum, etc. I doubt there will be anything earth shattering in these that we haven't seen before, but I'm willing to bet it'll be clever.
-- Gordon
But is that a requirement? People learn what they want to learn. If they want to learn how to solder they'll get a kit that requires or teaches soldering. But if their aim is something else, having a pre-made module or shield sidesteps what might have been a barrier to entry. If the idea is to convert wannabes into customers, then it's important to provide a product that reaches out to their goals, rather than a product that defines their goals.
As an example, I'm not particularly keen to learn which registers do what in a microcontroller, in order to program the thing. It's just not in my sphere of interest. Yet not long ago you had to know this stuff if you wanted to program the typical PIC. (Early on Atmel fostered support for dealing with chip registers from within the compiler, and not surprisingly their product line made a lot of inroads because of it. The registers are still there, of course, and you can still directly manipulate them, if that's your aim.)
Yes, we'll probably see a lot of projects made by simply mashing together premade modules. Their creators won't fully know how it all works. But at least they got that far. Their foot is in the door, and if only 1-in-100 decides to continue their education and learn electronics and programming, it'll be one more that wouldn't have traveled that road in the first place.
-- Gordon
I decided that I want to be a producer and not just a consumer.
The difference is if you know how to make it yourself, you will be either making and selling your product.
If you don't know how to make it yourself, you will always be buying someone else's PCB, kit or project.
If you have money, it won't be a problem. If you don't have money then it will be a problem.
I want some learning and not just a collection of products.
Agreed, but per Gordon, it's how you define success. Like it or not, these days, PR is king, and hyping the crowd mentality is a big part of that. Whether it's getting on HackaDay or Gizmodo or the blog de jour, that's what people are looking at. Personally, I hate the iPhone obsession, but these days, you better have an iPhone app for your product or you won't go too far.
There's nothing wrong with jumping on a good bandwagon, but it does require a lot of effort and considerable flexibility, something corporate America struggles with (along with anything "open source").
I was in the Verizon store and a woman was trying to keep the salesman from selling a smartphone to her daughter by saying, "I never needed a smartphone." I don't want a smart phone because the wireless companies want to sell me a $30 data plan and I would buy a smartphone that did Wifi if it wasn't for the fact that I had to buy a data plan because the wireless companies don't want you sitting by a router and using it for free.
I think Open Source is where you offer your ideas and you don't get paid. Instead of the internet trolls stealing your ideas, the people who make the money are the board makers and companies that sell the project.
The iPhone may be good for remote control projects but it adds a layer of abstraction that I don't need to use microcontrollers and the iPhone only represents people who can throw money away towards your microcontroller project.
I've been on these forums since about 2004/2005, and I'll say this... there has been very little change (if any...) to what's being offered in the BS2 line. IMO, it's in need of an overhaul. There's much that could be done to make the line a better value in both price and features.
The "What's a Microcotroller" kit, as good as it is, no longer has the competitive advantage that it had 5-10 years ago. Nor does the BS2 series. And Parallax, like all companies, needs to keep up with what the market is looking for, or lose market share. This is just basic business economics.
And I don't think it doesn't matter if the people who use this kit are being "coddled" just because all they have to do is hook up the wires. If they pursue an engineering career they won't be scared for life by this kit (most won't, anyway). I remember growing up, playing in the safe comfort of my lego blocks that always fit together properly. It was nice.
That's my vote for the top secret Parallax project: a PropBOE bot. The new school year is starting up soon...
True enough but consider this. At age 8 or 9 I was bought a Philips Electronic Engineer Kit. Basically a collection or resistors, caps, transistors, buttons. Also a speaker, a pot or two, a ferrite antenna rod etc . All these parts could be used to assemble simple circuits, an organ, a MW radio, a light detector etc etc. All you had to do was poke spring clips into a board as indicated by a cardboard overlays with circuits layouts on them, then use the spring clips to hold the components in place as per the layout. Easy to make things, easy to take them down for the next experiment. There was a nice book with all circuit diagrams and explanations.
You could call that "cut and paste" in hardware for the day. And for sure no soldering. But it was a damn good intro to electronics for a kid who knows almost nothing and a lot easier going and more flexible than soldering things up. At least after that you know that there is such a thing as electronics. Those who were sufficiently inspired were soon wanting to get into obtaining their own parts and soldering up permanent creations.
And how do you think I learned to solder?
(Replacing the transistors because I tended to blow them up... )
And frankly, the springs annoyed the H! out of me.
A proper experimenter board would have been nicer.
(Back then I did manage to 'create' a few circuits, but to actually transfer them to the EE system was just about impossible)
Now that I use the equipment properly there's no solder smoke and no ill health effects.
-Tor
Not sure how your transistors were supplied but mine just had the normal bare wires that you poked into the spring clips. The wires snapped off the transistors before I managed to blow them up. Hence the need to find a source of components and start to learn soldering and "proper" construction.
(The wires connecting the transistor to the rest of the circuit then locked the pcb in place)
There's virtually no lead in the smoke from soldering -- lead is way too heavy to go airborne. It's the rosin flux, and it's from trees after all, so it must be good for you! :-)
Seriously, some people are more susceptible to rosin fumes, just as some people get sick smelling the creosote in wood burning fireplaces. These don't bother me, but organic solvents like naphtha will make me seriously ill for days.
-- Gordon
Sorry, I just saw this thread today (I know, I know, getting my wisdom teeth out is no excuse! Back to work!).
I like this, erco. I've done a TON of research (more than I care to think about!) and there is definitely a market out there that is into simplifying for marketing!
A great example is this Ritz cracker box:
Simple shapes and colors- caught my attention!
We're always looking at all different ways to market- thanks for the heads up about Sparkfun's Inventor's Kit!
-MaddieTheIntern
Agreed. A BS3, with true analog inputs, more RAM, faster processor, etc. would kick some serious rump. It would only work, however, if it's a drop-in replacement for the BS2. So that means a 5V chip (or 3.3V that's fully 5V tolerant), support for PBasic2.5, and so on. Otherwise it won't get adopted as a replacement in the existing BS2 applications, such as the Boe-bot, which is heavily used in schools.
IMO such a product would not take away from Propeller sales, and in fact would complement the product line.
-- Gordon
How can it be a drop in replacement and also have analog inputs? I don't think a BS3 is the right answer for now or the future. Personally I really like the PropBOE solution, especially when (in the future) it can be coded for with GCC, along with spin/pasm, propbasic, and so on.
Check out the brand new PicAxe 20M2. 16 IOs, including direct ADC inputs, touch sensors, DAC, 1.8V operation, multitasking. $4. Ouch.
A BS3 was needed yesterday.
They're only analog inputs when the multiplexer is activated. Otherwise they're regular digital I/O. Same play as the Arduino.
In a perfect world we'd have both a BS3, to keep that updated, and the Prop line. There's room for both, because (even though there is cross over) they're attractive to different segments of the market.
-- Gordon
They've done an impressive job with the new M2 line. There are some under-the-hood limitations of these new chips, and you encounter them -- like you do with anything -- when you sit down and do hands-on development. For instance you can't select a higher clock when you use multi-tasking. I needed to support a higher serial baud rate (damn MIDI and its 31250 bps speed), but then couldn't also use multiple tasking.
Of course the Prop handles this without skipping a beat, but that's not the point. The fact that these M2 chips do what they do, starting at $3 (for the 08M2) is the kicker.
To addend my comment to Roy, the Arduino Pro Mini is a "drop in" replacement for the BS2. They don't push the fact -- quite the opposite, really -- but the pinouts are the same. You can't use a BOE to program it (inverted serial), but as the Pro Mini already has USB you can bypass the circuitry on the board and go straight to the Arduino. For <$20 it's not bad.
Ah, how the world turns.
-- Gordon
Just as a BTW, me too. I think it'll be Parallax's next killer product.
-- Gordon
Bee-Ess-Three! Bee-Ess-Three!! Bee-Ess-Three!!!
Allow me to translate for my good friend davejames: BS3! BS3! BS3!
However, I doubt that this will happen. Parallax is going more professional, and has been ever since the launch of the Propeller. The starting of Parallax Semiconductor confirms this. It will only be a matter of 5 years before they drop the BS2 completely.
Considering that it was the Basic Stamp that effectively put Parallax "on the map", it makes no sense to neglect continued development in the product line. The Propeller is good and all, but I can't imagine that it has the sales figures that the BS1/2 have. As mentioned, it serves a different market than more traditional microcontrollers.
What am I saying? It doesn't. You have to use a USB dongle.
I've been looking at too many boards recently. After a while they all spin together in the windmills of the mind. Or something like that.
-- Gordon