Ho Ho Ho! The 25th is fast approaching and we thought what better way to celebrate the season then with our families! (No, not the robotic ones, our real-living-breathing-warm- blooded ones!)

Solarbotics will officially be closed from December 23 to December 27, 2005. We will be back in the office for December 28 when we will work off the Christmas Turkey and process all orders accumulated over the holidays. On the 29th and the 30th we will be working like mad to get inventory done. Therefore only courier orders (1-2 business day delivery service) will be processed on December 29 & 30. If you have an order which is an emergency or you really would like it shipped on those days, call our toll free line (1-866-276-2687) and someone will help you. For everyone else we thank you for your patience and understanding as we count hundreds upon thousands of itty bitty electronic pieces!

Solarbotics will also be closed on January 2nd in lieu of New Year’s Day but it will be business as usual for January 3rd, 2006.

Wishing you all a warm and bright Holiday Season and a New Year filled with robots!

Yeeks! Jeez, it’s snuck up on me too…

If you want to get your favourite solder-geek a new project for Christmas, keep in mind that our deadline for shipping is approaching.

For US orders, your option is Purolator/DHL Courier (2 business days, so Wednesday the 21st by 2:00pm MST at the latest!).

Domestic (Canadian) orders get an extra day or so leeway. For Western Canada your options are Xpresspost (2-3 business days – Dec.20) and Purolator (1-2 business days – Dec.21 before 2:00pm MST).

Eastern Canada option is Purolator (1-2 business days – Dec.21 before 2:00pm MST).

Atlantic Canadas option is Purolator (1-2 business days – Dec.21 before 2:00pm MST).

International orders even have less time, so check your list and get your shopping done!

It comes to our attention from J Wolfgang Goerlich that he won the ECRG Walker competition with the “Servocore Walker” he built from a project in our “Bicore Experimenter’s PCB” bundle!

See more details about his walker
here.

Just got word from the Eastern Canadian Robot Games that Sumovores SWEPT the top 3 positions of 23 entries in the amateur class mini-sumo (Good job Jess Billers with “Lovebug”)! Well done guys!

Hi all. For all you Sumovore-owners, just a note to let you know that the new Atmel-WinAVR code is online (Atmel brainboard page under resources). Just some tweaks to make it compatible with the latest versions of WinAVR.

Also, Dan Peirce has ported the JAL portion of the ‘877 brains to the Hi-Tech PICCLite compiler, and made it available to us. Again, under the PICBrains page / resources tab.

8th Edition is online! Get it here, or under the “Resources” tab – it’s on the top bar.

We’ve just printed off our latest catalog, and if you’ve ordered from us in the last year, or asked for one, expect a copy in the mail shortly!

Or if you can’t wait, download a copy in PDF format now (1.9Mb)!

Woot! (Ok, I know it’s spelt W007)

The Sumovore is featured in volume 4 of Make Magazine in their suggested shopping list! For those of you who don’t know about this killer quarterly publication from the fine folks at O’Reilly & Associates, you have to check it out. Makezine is ideal for all you DIY people out there. (Don’t know what DIY means? Do It Yourself!)

Also this month in the mail is the Matrix comparison of the Sumovore, the Mark III and the Parallax Minisumo in this month’s Servo Magazine. We hate to brag (wrong – we do!), but the Sumovore practically walks away with the comparison! Again, for those of you unfamiliar with Servo Magazine, it’s brought to you by the same fine folk who publish “Nuts and Volts”. With a pedigree like that, you know it’s a well-presented magazine.

I’ve got a note on my desk that says “Annouce that some Canadian Prices have changed”. Uh…ok. I do what I’m told.

Apparently, this has something to do with our Canadian dollar climbing like a rabid beaver.

Hi all!

The season to sumo is upon us, so we’d like to announce our “Ultimate Sumovore Bundles”! Get an award-winning Sumovore, upgraded GMTT traction tires, and a new set of brains to really tweak it out, and save a few bucks! See the features listed below for details.

Get it now, or resort to building this season’s mini-sumo out of left-over wrapping paper tubes and that dog-toy that Rover left under the tree…