So, like, it’s that magical time of year where we of Albertaville, Canada get a long weekend. We don’t even have a reason anymore. We just figure that we ought to have one, so we come up with a name that sounds semi-official and run with it. “Quick, we need to figure out what to call our August long weekend holiday!” “Uhh… Heritage Day? Yeah, that sounds all right. Everyone has some heritage they can celebrate. Heritage is an important thing, I hear.” And thus Heritage Day was born, and had those two men had the conversation a day later, we very well may have been celebrating National Tuna Fish Appreciation Day. And thus, Solarbotics and HVW Tech we will be closed on Monday, August 1st for the consuming of tuna salad sandwiches celebrating our heritage. You know what do do.

So how does one celebrate their heritage, anyways? In this case, we’re celebrating our electronics heritage by getting to know our distant, twice removed, once put back, and three more times removed great seventh cousin, SparkFun.  We go waaaay back to… A while ago. Anyways, we’re celebrating our SparkFun heritage (‘Colorado’ starts with a C, and ‘Calgary’ starts with a C, so I’m pretty sure we have something in common) by putting up a smattering of their shiny new stuff. Most of these are actually items that we’ve been carrying for a bit already, but have been semi-recently updated to a new version. On with the show:

• DSO Nano V2 – Pocket-Sized Digital Oscilloscope – Compact digital oscilloscope based on an ARM Cortex™-M3 compatible 32 bit platform, equipped with a 320×240 color display, microSD card capability, USB connection, and rechargeable LiPo battery.
• FTDI Basic Breakout – 3.3V – A basic breakout board for the FTDI FT232RL USB to serial IC, with a pinout that matches the FTDI cable to work with official Arduino and cloned 5V Arduino boards.
• FTDI Basic Breakout – 5V – You know, it’s like the one you just read about above. Except is has all sorts of more voltages. Mm, taste the ‘lectricity goodness.
• IMU 6DOF Razor – Ultra-Thin IMU – Measures pitch, roll, yaw, and rate of acceleration on each axis in a very flat package.
• GPS Shield – Add GPS functionality to your Arduino. You’ll be all set if you’re dropped in the wilderness with this, a GPS unit, an Arduino, a power supply, and some sorta display. You may or may not want to bring food along too. The GPS shield don’t taste too good.
• MP3 Trigger v2 – A HIGH-QUALITY audio playback unit for your embedded application. MP3 compatible up to 192Kbps stereo on microSD memory cards!
• Pocket AVR Programmer – Low cost, easy to use, works great with AVRDude, and is tested under Windows, Linux, and MacOS X. What more could you want? What’s that? A steak? With scalloped potatoes? TOO BAD, GET YOUR OWN.

And that’s all we got. Regardless of whether or not you have some heritage to use as an excuse to enjoy the weekend, we hope that everyone will… Enjoy the weekend.