We all know the Arduino as a versatile electronics prototyping tool, but it is often lacking in applications that require higher amperage. In response to this, a team of designers and programmers created Heatit, an open-source board in its final stages of design based on Arduino that also has the capability to deliver eight outputs at 12v and 500mA each. Output pins can also be combined for even higher amperages.

This means that with Heatit you can control materials and devices such as thermochromic ink and paint, conductive thread, muscle wire, laser diodes, and solenoids. It also has standard 5V I/Os enabling it to use a variety of sensors, switches, etc. The slim design and use of through-holes also make it ideal for wearable applications.

I was invited to speak at Tijuana Innovadora, a regional conference/expo. Mark Hatch of TechShop, Jason Short, an industrial designer by day and Drone programmer by night, as well as David Cuartielles of the Arduino team came as well to speak on an open source hardware panel. I must say that crossing the border into Mexico on foot the night before was an unexpected highlight of the trip. (The line leading in the opposite direction was unimaginably long.)

Our host for the event was Guillermo Montoya of Udrones.com, a Mexican company that is owned by 3D Robotics, which is run by Jordi Munoz and Chris Anderson. 3D Robotics is the business side of DIY Drones and sells the arduPilot controller along with planes and quad copters. It has a design and engineering center in San Diego and now does most of its manufacturing is in Tijuana, with plans to move all of it there eventually.

In the evening, after a tasty dinner at a Tijuana cervicheria, we visited the small manufacturing facility of Udrones on the outskirts Guillermo said they had been in the new facility for six months, after starting in his apartment. An electrical engineer, Guillermo is a childhood friend of Jordi Munoz, who is also from Tijuana and talked his friend into starting up this facility. They manufacture ArduPilot boards, cut body parts out on two CNC machines, and then assemble and test the quadcopters and ship them internationally.

The team of Udrones.com (from left to right, above) is Jesus Cain, Manuel Arriaga, Jose Guillermo Romero, Oscar Nunez, and Raul Montoya. Not shown is Lissana Lozano, who helped us find our way around the conference and the city. Raul and Jesus are also students at the university. They said it takes them about a half-hour to assemble a quadcopter.

Jason Short checks out a special black ArduPilot board.

One of the questions that Guillermo asked me was why there weren’t more signs of the maker movement in Spanish-speaking countries, particularly in Central and South America. He noted that there had not been a mini Maker Faire in those regions. There aren’t many hacker spaces either, although at World Maker Faire in NYC I met Tiburcio de la Carcova who had opened a makerspace in Santiago, Chile. I don’t have a good answer for Guillermo. David Cuartielles, who is Spanish, thought that the delays in translating technical information into Spanish is largely responsible. (MAKE is not published in a Spanish edition.) I would like to think that the example of Guillermo and his team might inspire others to see what’s possible.

The Inebriator is a sweet Arduino-powered cocktail machine. Cool, right? Interestingly, there is a twist where the creators are declining to reveal a BOM or source code, and there’s a minor fracas on the site in comments. This is certainly their right, but it seems an oddity in this era of open source hardware. Or maybe I’ve just drunk too much MAKE-ade? Leave a comment with your thoughts.

DIY drones are the rage! Chris flew a quadcopter off the stage, and entertained droves of questions from how much weight the copters can carry, to FAA regulations, and announced that they would have a new ARM-based APM (Ardu Pilot Mega) by Maker Faire New York.

I’m excited about MAKE’s Hardware Innovation Workshop, May 15-16, at PARC in Palo Alto. The workshop is an opportunity to explore what’s shaping the newly emerging businesses that makers are creating.  Come meet the people who are leading this new wave of hardware innovation and contribute to the discussion about new opportunities in making. You’ll be able to get a “big picture”  understanding of how new technology and new communities are changing product development, collaborative design, and manufacturing.

The makers themselves are part of an open R&D lab that any company can benefit from, if they know how to engage them.  Increasingly, businesses and investors are beginning to pay attention.

Here are some of the headlines:

• Open source hardware and software are providing standardized components on which to build new applications.
• New fabrication tools are creating a rapid-prototyping revolution that makes iteration cheaper, faster, and easier.
• Collaborative design practices are using new tools and tapping new kinds of expertise.
• Options for manufacturing at scale are improving, as more and more of the process becomes automated.
• Crowdfunding is helping launch new projects and providing funding to test out new product ideas.
• Traditional investors are wary of hardware, but hardware-focused incubators hope to soften resistance by helping hardware startups become better prepared for investors.

Check out the full list of  makers who will be speaking at the Hardware Innovation Workshop.    Phil Torrone and Limor Fried of AdaFruit, Massimo Banzi of Arduino, Ayah Bdeir of LittleBits, Tod Kurt of ThingM, Liam Casey of PCH International, Bunnie Huang, Caterina Mota of OpenMaterials, Allan Chochinov of Core77, Nathan Seidle of SparkFun Electronics, Mark Hatch of TechShop and Carl Bass of Autodesk.   In addition, on Tuesday evening, we will open with a showcase of 25 hardware startups along with demos by companies like Autodesk, ShopBot, MakerBot, and more.

The Workshop is a one-and-a-half day intensive introduction to the business of making and the makers who are creating these businesses.  We will be sharing the ideas that come out of this workshop in a variety of ways during and after the event. Watch Makezine for details.

If you need information on the event and to register, go to:  Hardware Innovation Workshop.

Continue reading Insert Coin: BoardX is an open-source, modular motherboard for prolific prototypers

Insert Coin: BoardX is an open-source, modular motherboard for prolific prototypers originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Nov 2011 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.