All inventory from HVWTech.com has been added to Solarbotics.com! Seriously. We got a million more categories to match the bajillion more items we’ve added, but it’s all there. We’ve even cleaned up some of the bugs, so everything should be working properly. If you stumble across a broken link or any other issues, please feel free to let us know. We ballpark that we’ve brought across more than 350 products, which is, quite frankly, nuts. We’re so glad we can offer you so much inventory, but we’re also so glad that we’re done bringing all of those items across. It was a lot of work. So take a look at what’s there, and enjoy!

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL! On top of bringing over all the existing items, we’ve also been adding a fistful of brand-new ones.  We just got a big shipment in from ThingM, which tops up our BlinkM supply and also adds the new MinM. Some other highlights include super-useful Pololu wheels and some kits from DaleWheat.com for making purdy, blinking lights. Check it all out:

• BlinkM MinM
• Pan & Tilt Bracket Kit
• Getting Started with Processing
• 433 MHz RF Transceiver
• MicroSD Shield (new version)
• Pololu 60×8mm Black Wheel Pair
• Pololu 70×8mm Black Wheel Pair
• Pololu 80×10mm Black Wheel Pair
• Pololu 90×10mm Black Wheel Pair
• tinyCylon kit
• Lux Spectralis
• Wee Blinky

And in other news, we’ve started to receive some reviews for the BeetleBot. If you aren’t quite sure about the kit, take a read through one of these links and get a point of view from someone else:

• Louis/DutchBot from Lets Make Robots
• Antony from Robotixlab
• Bruce from the Pictou County Electronics Club

Even if you aren’t interested in the Beetle, be sure to check out those sites - they have lots of great resources and information for robotics and electronics. We’d just like to quickly thank our reviewers for their hard work and excellent write-ups.

Around the office, Dave is playing with the new pick and place machine (that’s #3, if anyone’s keeping count) and yours-truly is the second fastest motor-tray loader in the west, behind none other than Cheryl “The Speed Demon” Hrynkiw herself (we’ve been holding time trials in the office to see who can load rig for 120 GM9’s the quickest for branding in the laser. Sorry Dave, I just robbed you of a top 3 finish and gave Tom the boot from 2nd). On a sadder note, Vinny in sales/order processing has moved on from the company. We’ll miss him. Being under the constant fear of having our kneecaps mercilessly crushed for the slightest mis-step is something we definitely won’t miss, however. All kidding aside, we wish him all the best with his next endeavour.

And that about wraps things up for another week. Autumn is slowly creeping up on us, so get out there and enjoy the last few drops of summer before it dries up.

The Atmel ATMega328 is the power behind the Arduino/Freeduino/*duino, and we have to set up a programming system to burn the venerable Arduino Bootloader into these chips.

We normally use an AVR STK500 in HVSP (high voltage serial programming) mode, as that lets us be absolutely sure the fuses are set correctly and the burn is correct. Interestingly enough, this last batch of chips refused to work with our batch files. Asking the chip’s ID often returned 0×01 0×03 0X05 instead of the expected signature.

After spending a day checking to see if the programmer was broken (nope) or if the chips were fake (nope, we think), we did find that they did respond to regular old ICSP (in-circuit serial programming), but only partially.

Digging around, we found some older ATMega328 chips that worked fine, and compared them to this new batch. This troublesome batch has a date code of 1015 (15th week of 2010), and a batch code on the bottom as 9J4302 / 35473d / 1-P1015 e3.

So we re-wrote our batch file burning code to use AVRDude instead of the STK500 command-programmer, and to run it in ICSP mode on the STK500. The key addition is the “-B” part, which slows down the communication a bit. You want it as low as possible for fastest burn times. I tried a “-B 2″ on both fuse & programming lines, but that really slowed the process. What’s below is what we settled on.

: Set fuse bits, lock bits, voltages

.avrdude -c stk500v2 -i 20 -p m328p -P COM1 -b 115200 -B 1.8 -e -u -U lock:w:0x3f:m -U efuse:w:0x05:m -U hfuse:w:0xDA:m -U lfuse:w:0xFF:m

: Burn & Lock Arduino hex bootloader file

.avrdude -c stk500v2 -p m328p -P COM1 -b 115200 -B 1.1 -U flash:w:%HEXFILE% -U lock:w:0x0f:m

Hope that’ll save anybody else from blowing better part of a day figuring out why their Atmel isn’t programming normally!

First off, we’re doing a MASSIVE restructuring of all out categories. Just like with your car keys, things are not going to be where you thought you left them. The fool-proof way to find items while everything is up in the air is to use the search field. And here’s a neat trick - if you know the SKU of the item you want to find you can alter the URL. Take a standard item address, and just enter the SKU in the last set of slashes. It’s that easy.

Another hiccup you may run into is that clicking on or navigating to a select few categories  will give you an error. This is a bug we’re aware of and in the middle of troubleshooting. We’ll try to fix it as soon as we can, but we don’t have a work around at the moment.

One last issue you might stumble upon is broken links in item descriptions. These actually point to products we haven’t brought over yet, so they’ll start working as more products come online.

We’re aiming to have this all wrapped up by the time the summer comes to a close, but it’s quite an undertaking. In the past two weeks we’ve brought over some 200 items (don’t believe me? Check out our brand-new Electronics Components section) , but there is still tons to go. Once we’re all done, though, you’ll have more selection on a better-functioning site, and won’t have the need to cross-shop at HVW Tech. Thanks for your patience - we want to get this wrapped up as much as you do. And in the mean time…

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN.

Since they left, we’re finding we have too many projects and not enough hands to get them done. Got  some/any of the following qualifications?

• Practical experience with sensors
• Experience with 8-bit embedded computing (AVR, PIC 12/16F series).
• PCB CAD experience (we use Altium Summer ‘09)
• Robot-building skills
• Grok open-source hardware, MAKE and Arduino
• Live in/near Calgary, Alberta Canada?

You have to have some practical bench skills. I.e.: Can you program a “hello world” LED blinker onto a 12F675 at our workbench?

Drop us a line as jobs@solarbotics.com

What does this mean to the people of the rest of the world who don’t celebrate The Heritage, probably because they’re not so big on golf and/or many Euros? It means that Solarbotics and HVW Tech will be closed on Monday, August the 2nd. Usual rules apply - submit orders, email, and leave phone messages to your heart’s content. We’ll be back up and running on Tuesday, processing your orders and replying to any correspondence we’ve received.

“But wait,” you say, “I just happen to like golf/Euros/The Heritage, and/or I wish I could join in on the festivities!” Well, it just so happens that Santa Claus Henrik Stenson (who won The Heritage) left a present under the tree tee. We’ve just added an imperial boatload-worth (a totally legitimate form of measurement) of books to our lineup. No, we’re serious. We added so many books that we had to take our single Books category and break it down into no less than six different sub-sections. So, like, if par for a book category was 8 subcategories, then we’d have an eagle (two under par), which sounds pretty impressive. If we had seven, it’d be a birdie, which sounds far too lame. Nine categories and it’d be a bogey. Which, if you think of bogeys as unidentified enemy combatants (”Bogey on your six! Go evasive!!”), it’s pretty awesome and action-packed. Unlike golf.

*cough*

So go on over and check out all them literatures. And while you’re at it, there are some new sales going down at HVWTech.com, including lots of Phidgets inventory on for 10-20% off. Remember - if you put in an order both on Solarbotics and HVWTech, let us know (email, phone, or leave a comment when submitting your order) and we’ll merge the two together and adjust your shipping costs.

And without further delay, we wish all y’all a great The Heritage weekend. We’ve reached the cut-off deadline for applicants to review free BeetleBots, and I’ll be be sending out emails to those that wrote in early next week.

So this week we have a few small tidbits. To kick things off, our sister site HVWtech.com is throwin’ a bit of a mid-summer shindig. A handful of items will be on sale  each week from a different brand, but quantities are limited so you better check it out quick. There has also been a decent fistful of new items added, including some SparkFun and Gravitron stock. Head on over to check it out.

Have you heard of the Most Useless Machine? Well, apparently Stephen Colbert has (hey look, a link for Canadians, too! Dear Comedy Central, making your websites region-specific is stupid). And if you want to make your own such device, we suggest checking out this fantastic tutorial over at MakeProjects. As it turns out, we carry almost all of the items you’ll need, such as:

• GM2 Gearmotor
• GMW Gearmotor Wheel
• GMB28 Motor Bracket
• BHoldAAx4 Battery Holder
• GM9 SPDT switch

You’ll still need to get a hold of the box, wire, and DPDT switch, but we should have enough for you to assemble most of the electronic guts for building something… Useless, apparently.

In 1971, three teachers started a company with two simple goals. The first was to provide their colleagues much-needed innovative products for teaching technology education concepts. The second was to deliver on the promise of great customer service.

For almost 40 years, their once part-time endeavor has expanded beyond technology education to also cover science, math, and engineering and now serves millions of teachers and students with thousands of innovative, hands-on products and industry-leading customer service. Thousands of activities and projects covering CO2 dragsters, aerospace, sustainable energy, structures, engineering, and more are available. Each activity provides students a motivating, hands-on experience and helps teachers ensure student success in today’s standards-based classrooms.

They’ve certainly been around for a long time and have an impressive track record. These guys operate right out of Pittsburg, so if you live in the area and need some Solarbotics goods (or any of the other great stuff they carry), give Pitsco a call or check out their site.

Er, desk.

• Do you run a website? Do you like robots? No way, US TOO! Now here’s the really tough question: Do you like free robots? Here’s the scoop - we want to send out some of our Beetlebots for people to build and review. To apply all you need to do is contact chris [at] solarbotics [dot] com detailing why you should get a ‘bot to review. There’s one qualifying requirement - you need to send your email from the address of the website you’re representing, or provide some other form of reasonable/sufficient proof. We can’t just give free robots our to everyone, you know. As much as we wish we could. It’d make the world a much better (and robotier) place.
• Don wrote in and showed off his Delux Reverse Geocache, which we think is nothing short of incredibly awesome. Why share this on Solarbotics? He writes, “Your yellow Sintra is a near-perfect match of the yellow tint of a yellow Pelican case!”Originally, the Sintra is intended for making signs, but we find it a useful material for forming robot bases/chasis. Using it for geocaching is definitely a new one to add to the list, but great nonetheless.
• Our new laser is up and running like a hedgehog on a motorcycle (…wait, what?). All themes and colours for our PumLantern are now available, and we blew half of Friday engraving random stuff for the staff while we huddled around the machine chanting, “Ooooohhhhh, ahhhhhhh…” If that sounds creepy, well, that’s because it was. The laser brings out strange emotions.
• Creativity is a nasty thing. As we all know, the Mona Lisa was supposed to be a sfumato-filled landscape, until Da Vinci had some “inspiration” and ruined it all by putting some lady in the middle of it. So it happens with some of our staff - we asked Landen and Patrick to peel the sticky paper backing off of the ARDX bases, which they interpreted as “build a free-standing sculpture of a man with a war hammer“. The called him Helgar. I personally think he has a passing resemblance to a certain bear holding a shark.
• We’ve just passed the 300 mark for fans on Facebook. If you guys we all Spartan warriors, we’d totally be able to take on the million-soldier Persian army. But there ain’t no Persian army, so… WATCH OUT SPARKFUN! WE’RE COMING FOR YOU!
  /kidding (SparkFun, baby, we were only kiddin’. You know we loves you, right?)
• It might be worth while to keep tabs on our Flickr stream - Dave’s been updating it with a bunch of odds and ends, including a new Ardweeny add-on and video of some fire in our band-new laser. Don’t worry, it’s pretty small this time.

Aaaaand that about sums it all up. We’re particularly excited about sending those Beetlebots out for review, so regardless of the size of your site or audience give us a shout. It certainly can’t hurt, and you could land yourself a brand-spankin’-new robot, free of charge. That’s it - take care, y’all. (Yikes, looks like the Stampede is even getting to yours-truly…)

Our boss showed up to work today wearing a red shirt with beige pants. BEIGE PANTS!

Also, he just so happens to be leaning on the brand-new laser that was delivered not 20mins ago.  It’s a 60W Eplilog Helix (which you may have figured out for yourself), and comes with 33% more buttons, blue-painted bits, and watts than our old (and crispy) 40W model. And as we all know, more buttons = more awesome.

This would be the part where we say, “Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!” But first we need to finish the renovations and have a place to plug it in (along with the neglected Pick-n-Place machines also in the photo).

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go crack a whip over those slackers building the clean room. It’s a laser, people. A LAAAZOR. Priorities don’t get much more important than that.

*Ahem*

As it just so happens, we can say with confidence that for July 1st our country is simply more awesome than usual because it gives us a day off work so that we can celebrate Canada Day (aka “Canada D’Eh?”). Ice cold igloos will stand tall in the snowy, -30C/-22F summer air, and maple syrup will temporarily replace the sparkling fresh spring water that normally flows forth from household taps across the country. Throngs of patriotic citizens commute via dogsled to our humble multicultural village centers, to stand in queues and engage in polite French-Canadian smalltalk. All the while wearing toques and eating Canadian bacon, of course.  The day comes to an exciting climax when ranks of Mounties, dressed in bright red uniforms and large brimmed hats, parade around on their horses while masterfully executing organized formations. And, I kid you not, the last part is completely true.

And then to follow up Canada Day, the staff at Solarbotics will be celebrating We Don’t Feel Like Coming Into Work Day on Friday the 2nd. So, to recap: Solarbotics/HVW Tech will be closed on Thursday the 1st and Friday the 2nd of July. Send your emails, leave messages, place orders, etc etc. We’ll get back into the swing of things on the following Monday (the 5th), and start shipping packages and addressing and correspondence we’ve received.

And to all of our pals to the south in the United States (and to the north in Alaska. Don’t worry - we didn’t forget you like the rest of your country tends to do sometimes), we hope you have a great My Country is More Awesome Than Usual Day on the 4th. We’ll be really impressed (and a bit jealous) if you manage to follow it up with a We Don’t Feel Like Coming Into Work Day on Monday.

Force Sensors  Phidgets Force Sensor Phidgets Touch Sensor Phidgets Pressure Sensor IESF-R-5 Pressure Sensor IESP-12 Force Sensor Flex Sensor 4.5″ Sparkfun Capacitive Sensor Board
Ultrasonic Sensors Phidgets Sound Sensor
BittyBot Sensors BittyBot ProxDots (2-pack) Kit BittyBot ProxDots (4-pack) Kit BittyBot 2-Way Object Sensor Kit BittyBot 3-Way Object Sensor BittyBot Nano Line Sensor Kit BittyBot Micro Line Sensor Kit
Infra-Red Sensors Phidgets IR Reflective Sensor QRB1114 IR Sensor Pololu IR Beacon Transceiver (Pair)

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “You FOOL! Those Phidgets sensors sure look incredible, but I don’t have any cables to attach them with! And nothing to interface them to!” Well my good friend, we have you covered. Check no further than the Phidgets Sensor Cable, PhidgetInterfaceKit 8/8/8 and Phidgets White LCD with 8/8/8 Interface. “Hrm, not bad,” you ponder, “but it sure would be nice if all those super cool, easy to use USB-goodness Phidgets items were grouped into the same category.” Well you’re in luck, because not only can we see the future, but we can read your mind. In the future. Which is now the past. Uh, yeah. PHIDGETS CATEGORY! Also, the MEGABitty Atmel Microcontroller Kit. It pretty much rounds out the BittyBot lineup - a bunch of super-small, super-compact, and (you guessed it) super-cool solutions for tiny robots. Aaaand that’s it. Have a good weekend, everyone!