2019 was a pretty epic year for the Adafruit Youtube Channel! Our channel now has over 325,000 subscribers and over 60 million views! Take a look at our top 10 youtube videos of 2019 below!
10.
Adafruit PyGamer #MakeCode #CircuitPython #Arduino
Say hello to the #Adafruit #PyGamer ??It’s got a cortex M4, 1.8in TFT display with 8 buttons, accelerometer, light sensor and speaker. Also USB charging and JST ports!
It’s a pretty small device packed with all sorts of hardware.
It’s built for creative development and it’s fully open source!
Codecademy, an online interactive learning platform used by more than 45 million people, has teamed up with the leading manufacturer in STEAM electronics, Adafruit Industries, to create a coding course, “Learn Hardware Programming with CircuitPython”. Starting today, the course is available in the Codecademy catalog.
In this project we’re building a rig for installing heat set inserts. Use 3D printed parts and hardware to build a solder rig with smooth linear roller action! Make perfectly straight inserts with precision using a tip for installing inserts.
You’ve heard of machine learning (ML), but what is it? And do you have to buy specialty hardware to experiment? If you have some Adafruit hardware, you can build some Tiny ML projects today!
Following up on our earlier mass-storage support announcement for TinyUSB, we just added WebUSB support!
You can now send and receive data over Chrome (or other WebUSB) browsers with Javascript or whatever else is your favorite web programming language.
This can make for really interesting interactions where people don’t need any drivers or software to send/receive commands, or perhaps to expose some sort of REPL.
Make a light up Master Sword from the Legend of Zelda! This build has motion activated sound effects and LED animations!
The Adafruit Feather and Prop-Maker FeatherWing has you need to add lights and sounds to your projects. NeoPixel LEDs are fitted inside the blade.
This uses the built-in accelerometer and audio amp. When you swing it around, it’ll make different sound effects. On heavy hits it makes flashes and fade the colors of the LEDs.
It has pulsing animation and an idle sound effect that loops in the background. You can make this fit your project by customizing the colors or adding different sound effects. You can recharge the battery or even add new sounds with the USB port. The sword mounts on a computer, just like a USB Drive!
The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B is the newest Raspberry Pi computer made, and the Pi Foundation knows you can always make a good thing better! And what could make the Pi 4 better than the 3? How about a faster processor, USB 3.0 ports, and updated Gigabit Ethernet chip with PoE capability? Good guess – that’s exactly what they did!
The Raspberry Pi 4 is the latest product in the Raspberry Pi range, boasting an updated 64-bit quad core processor running at 1.4GHz with built-in metal heatsink, USB 3 ports, dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless LAN, faster (300 mbps) Ethernet, and PoE capability via a separate PoE HAT.
…we were told they were producing an incredible 3,000 units per month. At that time the number was far larger than any other manufacturer we were aware of. To put this in perspective, MakerBot’s first 3D printer, the venerable CupCake, likely sold fewer than 2,000 units in total. Prusa now made that many machines in only a couple of weeks.
We were told Prusa now produces about 450 units per day.
If they’re running a seven-day-a-week operation, this is equivalent to 3,150 units per week, 13,500 units per month, or a staggering 164,250 units per year.
In the last five years, Josef Prusa has grown his eponymous company from a bootstrapped enterprise to one of the largest 3D printer companies in the world. With Conan O’Brien and Wil Wheaton as fans, Prusa has shipped tens of thousands of printers to over 130 countries. In 2017, the company expects to do over €33M in revenue and Forbes Czech Republic estimated its valuation to be €236 million in 2016. Not only are his 3D printers one of the best-sellers around the world, they’re also “self-replicating”. Inside what Prusa calls “The Farm”, more than 300 printers are busy printing parts to construct new printers.
Now, there are more than 300 people working in Prusa Research and we ship over 6000 printers worldwide directly from our HQ in Prague every month! We have become the no.1 fastest growing tech company in Central Europe (Deloitte 2018) with the growth rate of 17,118 % over the last four years!
October is open-source hardware month! Every single day in October we’ll be posting up some open-source stories from the last decade (and more!) about open-source hardware, open-source software, and beyond!
Have an open-source hardware (or software) success story? A person, company, or project to celebrate? An open-source challenge? Post up here in the comments or email opensource@adafruit.com, we’ll be looking for, and using the tag #OHM2019 online as well! Check out all the events going on here!
In March of 2005, the first entry on the RepRap blog was posted. There’s something about March of 2005, there were a lot of open-source hardware efforts kicking off that month and that year. There was one project in particular that helped start all the open-source 3D printers, and that was the RepRap project.
The RepRap project started in England in 2005 as a University of Bath initiative to develop a low-cost 3D printer that can print most of its own components, but it is now made up of hundreds of collaborators world wide. RepRap is short for replicating rapid prototyper.
As an open design, all of the designs produced by the project are released under a free software license, the GNU General Public License.
Due to the ability of the machine to make some of its own parts, authors envisioned the possibility of cheap RepRap units, enabling the manufacture of complex products without the need for extensive industrial infrastructure. They intended for the RepRap to demonstrate evolution in this process as well as for it to increase in number exponentially. A preliminary study claimed that using RepRaps to print common products results in economic savings.
RepRap was founded in 2005 by Dr Adrian Bowyer, a Senior Lecturer in mechanical engineering at the University of Bath in England. Funding was obtained from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
In 1984 I took up a lectureship in manufacturing in Bath’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and was subsequently promoted to senior lecturer. I retired in 2012 to concentrate on the RepRap Project and my company RepRap Ltd.
I am the originator of the worldwide RepRap Project – a project that has created humanity’s first general purpose self-replicating manufacturing machine. It works using 3D printing. I am also a founder and director of RepRap Ltd – a company formed to do research and development in self-replicating open-source 3D Printing.
Talk: “Manufacturing For The Masses” by Dr. Adrian Bowyer (2017) – YouTube.
Since the RepRap project has a lot of contributors and history, I tried to find a complete detailed history of the project from Dr Adrian Bowyer, and it turns out there is one on ALL3DP “The Official History of the RepRap Project”. MakerBot, LulzBot, Prusa, and more… All got their starts with the RepRap project –
2 February 2004
RepRap invented.
23 March 2005
The RepRap blog is started and research begins.
13 September 2006
The RepRap 0.2 prototype successfully prints the first part of itself, which is subsequently used to replace an identical part originally created by a commercial 3D printer.
9 February 2008
RepRap 1.0 “Darwin” successfully makes at least one instance of over half its total rapid-prototyped parts.
14 April 2008
Possibly the first end-user item is made by a RepRap: a clamp to hold an iPod securely to the dashboard of a Ford Fiesta.
29 May 2008
Within a few minutes of being assembled, the first completed “child” machine makes the first part for a “grandchild” at the University of Bath, UK.
23 September 2008
It is reported that at least 100 copies have been produced in various countries. The exact number of RepRaps in circulation at that time is unknown.
30 November 2008
First documented “in the wild” replication occurs. Replication is completed by Wade Bortz, the first user outside of the developers’ team to produce a complete set for another person.
2 October 2009
The second generation design, called “Mendel”, prints its first part. The Mendel’s shape resembles a triangular prism rather than a cube.
January 2009 MakerBot Industries is founded by RepRap volunteers and others to sell 3D printers based on RepRap that are open-source, but are not self-replicating. MakerBot was the first company based on RepRap.
13 October 2009
RepRap 2.0 “Mendel” is completed.
27 January 2010
The Foresight Institute announces the “Kartik M. Gada Humanitarian Innovation Prize” for the design and construction of an improved RepRap. The administration of the prize is later transferred to Humanity+.
31 August 2010
The third generation design, “Huxley”, is officially named. Development is based on a miniaturized version of the Mendel hardware with 30% of the original print volume.
January 2011 Aleph Objects founded to produce open-source LulzBot 3D printers based on RepRap. The number of RepRap-based companies making 3D-printers grows.
2011/2012
RepRap and RepStrap building and usage are increasing within the technology, gadget, and engineering communities. RepRaps or commercial derivatives have been featured in many mainstream media sources, and are on the permanent watch lists of such technology media as Wired and some influential engineering-professionals’ news media.
Late 2012
The first Delta RepRap design, Rostock, is in development. Delta machines use a non-Cartesian axis design.
July 2013
The Gada Prize is awarded to RepRap Morgan, designed by Quentin Harley.
12 May 2015
The Dollo self-replicating 3D printer with a very high proportion of self-replicated parts is introduced by Ben and Benjamin Engel.
8 September 2015
RepRap Snappy is introduced by Revar Desmera of the Bay Area RepRap User Group. Like the Dollo it has a very high proportion of self-printed parts (73%) and assembly is achieved by clipping those parts together as opposed to using nuts and bolts.
January 2016
RepRapPro (one of many commercial RepRap companies, but one founded by Adrian Bowyer and others) announced on their website that they were to cease trading. The reason given was congestion of the market for low-cost 3D printers derived from the RepRap Project and the inability to expand in that market.
The latest addition to this list I’ll add here continues on the self-replication vibe that started it all, in March 2019, the Mulbot, a RepRap, an open source Mostly Printed 3D printer was published (video).
October is open-source hardware month! Every single day in October we’ll be posting up some open-source stories from the last decade (and more!) about open-source hardware, open-source software, and beyond!
Have an open-source hardware (or software) success story? A person, company, or project to celebrate? An open-source challenge? Post up here in the comments or email opensource@adafruit.com, we’ll be looking for, and using the tag #OHM2019 online as well! Check out all the events going on here!
In this speech at a recent Chinese open source conference, YouTube star Naomi Wu explains the benefits of open source from a Chinese perspective. She ought to know. She is the only person from China who holds a OSHW certification. She talks of her experience in developing the sino:bit educational hardware device and her relationship with Creality 3D printer company and helping them understand the importance of open source.
Although this speech is in Chinese with English subtitles it is well worth your effort to watch.
Jason from CodeKitty wrote in to tell us what the organization is up to:
Hello! We are a Twin Cities, Minnesota (USA) based technology
education 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit. Our mission is to make coding
and engineering skills accessible to everyone (especially targeting girls
and underrepresented groups) by providing donation-funded (or free) coding
workshops using our extremely low cost 3D printed robot. Our workshop is a
$50 suggested donation per attendee and includes the robot, so that Every
Kid Gets a Robot. So far we have given away around 100 robots in this
fashion, and provided our workshop for both students as young as second
grade, and for teachers as Professional Development (in a meta-workshop
train-the-trainer model).
We are constantly working to simplify our robot, and the currently released
model is based around your excellent Trinket m0 board, a custom designed
(oshpark fabricated) breakout board, and 360 degree microservos). The
challenge we have as a very small non-profit is that I design and
manufacture all of the robot kits by hand myself, including reflow and hand
soldering all of the breakout boards. Although the Trinket m0 is very low
cost, the time and materials cost of self-manufacturing our trinket breakout
board raises our costs substantially, and our total cost of this model of
our robot is $27.54, not factoring in any cost or value at all for the
considerable amount of time i spend making them.
The Code Kitty robot is a 3D printed robot designed to help teach kids coding. It was developed by the Code Kitty non-profit because we wanted there to be a robot cheap enough for every kid to have one and learn the joy of engineering, coding, and robotics! We offer the robot to participants of our workshop, or sell complete robot kits under a “buy one/give one” program for $50.
Although the 3D printed parts of the robot are the same, there are two “builds” of the electronics of the robot: The “Workshop Build” and the “DIY Build”. In either case you will need to print one base, one face, one tail, two wheels and two hubcaps. We recommend combining all of the parts you want to be the same color into one print job, and the parts are small enough that the entire robot can be printed in two print jobs on most 3D printers.
They’re doing great things and you can always check out what they’re up to here.
