Another Friday New Product Post with Contest Results!

We have another week of new products and the details (and results) from the contest we did last week.

This is a relatively uneventful week for new products. Not only did SparkFun have its summer party yesterday, but this time of the year, things tend to calm down a bit. Maybe it has something to do with the heat? So, we don't have a ton of new products, but there's still a few things which people should find interesting.

Looking through all the entries to the contest was quite interesting. There was a wide range of guesses from about $100 up to almost $500k! In the video, I promised to graph everything out, but my statistical abilities are a bit rusty and I forgot how to graph data into a bell curve (assuming it looks anything like one). So I did what anyone does when they've exhausted searching for an answer on Google - I opened MS Paint and faked it.

Nailed it!

In the end, the correct answer was $9,106, and our closest guess (without going over) was $9,100.  Nice job! The average was $25,625, the median was $11,999, and the standard deviation was a whopping $47,725. This would have been one ugly (uglier?) graph if it had been real. In any event, thanks to everyone that entered and for all the overwhelming kind comments. We will do more contests in the future.

Love it or hate it, LabVIEW is a popular software. We are now bundling the student version of LabVIEW with an Arduino Uno. LabVIEW provides a graphical interface for your Arduino allowing a powerful toolkit for engineers, scientists, or even hobbyists.

We have a new version of our RFID Evaluation Shield. We've corrected the silk error from the last version. We've also added some example code which takes advantage of the data storage and retrieval features of the Mirare RFID tags. The example code lets you easily store and retrieve information from the 1K worth of storage on the Mifare 1K tags with simple commands. Check the video above (or the product page) for a demonstration.

Our new version of the 9DoF Razor now includes the new HMC5883L magnetometer. Otherwise, it's the same board we've been carrying. With the transition from the old magnetometer and the new gyro, this board is better than ever.

In addition to all the other new revisions, we also have a new minor revision of the Breadboard Arduino Compatible Parts Kit. This kit allows you to breadboard your very own Arduino. And with the add-on kit, you can solder it into a PCB. If you're looking to learn how to take a bare IC and convert it into a usable microcontroller, check out both of these kits. The new version of the kits uses the Arduino Optiboot Bootloader.

We now have our 1" metal standoffs back in stock. We are now selling these in packs of 10 and they are conveniently threaded for 4-40 screws on both ends.

Lately the new PICAXE microcontrollers have been showing up. This week we had the 20M2, which rounds out the new M2 family. PICAXE is a great beginner microcontroller and offers a lot of great features.

So that's all the products we have for this week. We'll be back with more stuff next week. In the meantime, stay cool (especially those of you on the east coast!) and I'll be back again soon with more new products.