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SparkFun will be closed on Tuesday, November 5th to support our team in being able to go out and vote! Orders placed after 2 pm MT Monday, November 4th will ship on Wednesday, November 6th. Thanks for your patience and understanding.
This week we're going to do something a bit different. Instead of a traditional Friday New Product Post video, we have two separate demo videos. But don't worry, not only does one video contain a beard, but it also has some puppies in it. So, here are the new products for this week.
The Touch Board from Bare Conductive is an easy-to-use Arduino@Heart board that gives you the ability to turn almost any material or surface into a sensor. Each Touch Board offers 12 electrodes for your a conductive ink or other type of connector that can be drawn or attached to create light switches, musical instruments, or custom interactive surfaces all through the Arduino IDE. Instead of just talking about it, why not show how it works!? Check out our demo video below.
Cable carriers are like flexible hollow chains that allow you to run wires on moving surfaces without worrying about kinking or damaging your cables. They are common in automation equipment, CNC machines, and 3D printers. This cable carrier is 0.5M long and has an internal dimension of 10x15mm. Want to see know more? Want to look at cute puppies? Check out the video below.
What can you do with the Raspberry Pi, the inexpensive credit card-sized computer? All sorts of things! If you’re learning how to program, or looking to build new electronic projects, Getting Started with Raspberry Pi will show you just how valuable this flexible little platform can be. This is the 2nd edition.
Need to add some power to a breadboard? Thhe SparkFun Breadboard Power Supply Sticks come in two types, a 5V/3.3V, and a 3.3V/1.8V. You connect a input voltage of 6-12V, and it will provide the necessary voltage you need. There's a switch on the board for selecting between the two voltage. It even has headers on the corners for plugging directly into a breadboard's power rails.
That's it for this week. Don't forget that tomorow is Pi day, and we have a pretty cool promotion going on, so be sure to check back on 3/14 for special deals. Thanks for watching and see you next week!
OK got to say it... Perceived Sparkfun culture has morphed into something that I cant relate to anymore. It used to be cool. Now it's not so cool
I have to say I couldn't disagree more. It's awesome that Sparkfun has remained both relevant and accessible. As long as these guys keep providing honest excitement about emerging tech in my eyes they're pretty incredible. And I still laugh with the nerdery… it's great.
Ouch. What's changed? I don't think we've changed. Curious what your perspective is?
(For the record, I've been here going on 7 years)
The video production quality has improved. Maybe that takes away the homebrew feel some liked and makes it look more corporate.
The new product friday room has less hobbed together look now with the company logo in background and tv screen on the side compared to when it was a wall of boxes.
I am not complaining but maybe thats some the things perceived as changed or different. Some of this comes with having a new building, everything looks new and polished.
Yeah - I feel you on that. The new building is certainly a lot "shinier" than the old one. But the video production is still just a dude (Gregg) or another dude (Nic) with a camera and some editing software. We're not, like, outsourcing to a video production studio -- but between the choice of making a) well-produced video or b) not well-produced video, we figured A is probably the better choice.
I also know what you're saying about the new studio. But when we got the new space, we had the opportunity to re-do the studio. Nick (the guy in the Bare Conductive video above), spent a LOT of time building it -- framing it out with 2x4s, painting it, attaching the metal panels. It's still very much DIY -- in the most literal sense of the phrase -- but polished DIY.
That TV was actually originally in a conference room, but ended up only being used for occasional Sega Genesis tournaments (NBA Jam FTW), so we decided we needed to do something with it. If you haven't noticed, we haven't entirely figured out how to use it in the product videos just yet - so there it is.
I'm not gonna say we're still cool. I'm not convinced we were ever cool -- but don't let our more polished looks fool you. We've slapped a few new coats of paint on, and we're always trying to be better, but SparkFun is still full of the same geeks we were one..two...ten years ago.
Also making videos for us is like being into any hobby/career. We care about it, so we are always going to try to learn new things and to get better. So things will look more polished as time goes on, but thats because we love what we do. :)
I don't have a problem with the new studio, at least after the audio kinks were worked out. But new product Friday is about the content -- you know, actual new products. Sure, some weeks there will be less to talk about than others -- so don't feel the video needs to be X minutes long. Information density is what it's all about.
If sitting on the floor with puppies is "corporate", I'd like to know what corporations you've worked at :)
Funny enough I've just had the same feeling when I saw the video. I might be old and grumpy but 3 minutes explaining how to use a cable carrier? The video is not titled 'new product friday' but rather 'product showcase' but what about the power supply stick?
There was a time where i was waiting for new products on friday but lately it has been all mehanical robot parts.
I saw another video where the presenter was wearing sunglasses. From my view I feel a distance to the presenter which I believe was not intended
They cheated by using two cute puppies. The amount that I want that cable carrier has increased dramatically with those puppies.
Love the leftmost symbol!! That was one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite shows!
We feel you Mr. Fillion, we feel you....
"Never work with animals or children" W.C. Fields
At least it went better than last time.
Love the puppies!
At 1:23 of the electricute video, Nick pressed the arm of R2D2, which, by paint, is not connected to the rest of the robot, how does this work?
I think it is probably connected with a little bit of the copper tape (possible painted white). If you look closely when Dia touches the leftmost symbol ("well my days..."), you can see the tape connecting the middle symbols to the outer ring.