Design Journal 6-My Arduino Shopping List
Recent studies by Buechley and Hill conclude that Arduino purchasers were 78% male 9% female (p. 202). After today’s order, I am in the 9%. In addition to my previous order, my project needs a Voice Recorder. There are two vendors that have been recommended as suppliers for the voice recorder and sound file. One vendor is SparkFun
Voice Recorder and Thin Speaker :
These two items are listed at SparkFun under these item numbers:
Another vendor to consider for next time is Adafruit: http://www.adafruit.com/. Adafruit was founded in 2005 by MIT engineer, Limor “Ladyada” Fried. Limor was the first female engineer on the cover of WIRED magazine and was recently awarded Entrepreneur magazine’s Entrepreneur of the year. Limor’s goal was to create the best place online for learning electronics and making the best designed products for makers of all ages and skill levels. Adafruit has grown to over 50 employees and a 15,000+ sq ft. factory. Adafruit is more than a webpage or online shopping site. It include tools, equipment and electronics that Limor personally selects, tests and approves before going in to the Adafruit store.
In 2014 Adafruit was ranked #11 in the top 20 USA manufacturing companies and #1 in New York City by Inc. 5000 “fastest growing private companies”. I really like the web site map for Adafruit. There are forums and a blog. Both encourage collaboration and communication. Every Wednesday there is a live chat at 8:00pm ET. I am slowly moving passed lurker status!
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References
Buechley, L., Hill, B.M. *20100. LilyPad in the wild: how hardware’s long tail is supporting new engineering and design communities. In Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, 199-207.
