Well folks, it’s winding down to the last few days before Christmas. If you’re aiming to get something delivered in the US before the 25th, you might be in luck if you order now and get it sent via UPS Express. We can’t make any guarantees this late in the game, but we’ll do our best to get your package out the door as fast as we can.

But one thing is for certain, and that’s that we’re taking a few days off over the next two weeks for some max relaxin’. So take note that Solarbotics and HVW Tech will be closed on December the 24th-27th, and the 31st. Happy-fun standard rules and conditions apply – send emails and submit orders, and we’ll do our best to take care of them as quickly as we can once we’re back in the holidays. I don’t think there’s much more to it then that. So from all of the staff here at Solarbotics, we wish you have a wonderful and safe holiday season (regardless of what holiday you may celebrating), and hope you have the opportunity to spend time with your friends and loved ones.

Well, it’s that time of the season to shut down and spend time with the family. Solarbotics will be closing December 21, 2001 at 4pm, and we’ll reopen January 3, 2002.

We’re teaming up with Brett Coulthard of Saskview.com to get their version of the Useless Machine put together as a parts bundle. We just finished it Friday night, and quick-posted tweets & a few photos of it, and are shipping today!

What comes in the bundle? Pretty much everything you need to successfully build a Useless Machine of your own:

1 x 39300 Black acrylic “Useless Box” construction set (with nut/bolt hardware)
1 x SWT8 DPDT toggle switch
1 x SWT9 SPDT lever switch
2 x #2 mounting screws for SWT9
1 x BHoldAA 2-AA battery pack
1 x DSST (double sided sticky tape, for mounting the battery pack)
6″ hookup wire
1 x GM4 gear motor
4 x “Little Rubber Feet” to protect your Useless machine from abrasive counter tops!

We’re only offering the box in black acrylic at the moment (experimented with clear – ehk), but if you ask really nicely, we probably could run one in red, blue, green, orange, white and (if you really want it), clear. Call in if you want any of those options.

Speaking of cool “Useless machines”, Tony Youngblood’s Christmas version was just featured on the Makezine Blog. He built his with our GM8 for super-fast response (we did our bundle with the slower GM4 – we like a more deliberate “ME: OFF” response).

Parallax is already sold out of the successor to the Scribbler. We have some still!

It’s always nice to get feedback (especially when it’s complementary!):

I have to let you know about my experience with your company this Christmas season. I wanted to purchase a robotic kit for my husband who had never build a kit before. I called to get some information as I am very much a novice, the help I received was wonderful! I was given a couple websites to look at as well as all the wonderful information I was given. After some more research I placed my order. I sent an email to get a tracking number only to find that my package had already been sent and was sent in a way were it would be at my home the following day!
I think that often companies only hear the complaints but never compliments on the wonderful service that they provide each day. Thank you so very very much, it was a complete pleasure doing business with Solarbotics.
-Corinne

I just wanted to say that I have put together several “solder by numbers” kits as I like to call them. Today I received my order form Solarbotics and when I opened the box, I was pleasantly surprised. They didn’t come in a box that was huge and filled with foam. The box was just big enough and everything was packaged VERY neatly and professionally. When I started building my kits (3 different kits) I was again pleasantly surprised by how concise and easy the instructions were. I will recommend your company to all my “do it yourself” hobbyists.

Thank you for a pleasant project night!

-David

The new S2 Scribblers from Parallax are in, and they feature a couple of cool new features. First: They’re Open-Source! Yup, they’ve opened up all the design files to make hacking oh-so-much easier!

Secondly, it’s using the Parallax Propeller chip now, for mucho-improved computational power.

They’re already out of stock at Parallax, so get them while we have them!

…DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE OVEN. You’ll burn the cookies while eating the dough!

Just got a new LOUD oven timer to make sure somebody is standing over the PCBs when the timer is about up. Pick and place machines tend to drown out gentle oven beeps!

BOY it’s been a busy season for us. Our pick and place has been moving at a blurring pace (while I’ve been baking the boards), and we’re getting the SB-Freeduino 2.3 back online.

What’s new from the v2.2? Not too much – we’ve cleaned and tidied up the overlay, incorporated some new Uno-style annotations on the lines, and added a bottom component mask to make it easier to read. We’re QC’ing a bunch now, and are presently shipping them out as of today!

Still looking for a good gift idea? Arduino/Freeduino Ultimate bundles! Just back in stock today.

Whew – back to getting neat stuff done!

Finally got them through the Pick and Place machine, tested, and ready to go. Check out the blue and green versions! (We’re still kicking around a VU-type Greeeeen/Yel/RED version too. What do you think?)

By the way, we’ve got some pretty decent sample code on how to use your Ardweeny Backpack (and thusly, any Arduino-compatible) for some 8-LED POV or temperature measurement using the TMP36 sensor.

Just yesterday, Calgary reached the 2nd coldest place on earth, just behind an outpost in Antarctica. Yes, we are cold. Even the dog doesn’t want to go out and play…

In other madness, one of our favourite distributors/suppliers, Sparkfun has announced their 2nd annual “Free Day”. Circle January 13, and if they get blown out of stock, remember that we might still have some of what you need. Regardless, we’ll be watching online, with our hand hovering over the florist quick-dial number to send more condolence bouquets to their fried servers.

Now that we have 2 of our 3 pick and place machines operational, we’re getting geared up for new product of our own. So far, we’ve put LEDs on Ardweeny Shields (green and blue coming out shortly!), and made our own FTDI USB to TTL interface board (on website shortly – just needs documentation).

Besides that, we’ve been busy shopping ourselves. Chronodots, tiny voltage booster/regulators, and the new PICAXE18M2 IC are just part of the new stuff. We’ll have more online & announced soon.