A Brilliant New Product Post
It's time to brighten your day with a glowing line-up of new products.
First off, a quick note. Due to the hurricane approaching the East Coast area of the US, some shipping may be delayed. Our thoughts are with all of those out there who may be affected by this storm.
In case you missed last week's post, Rob's in Thailand on his honeymoon which means that I'll be taking over the Friday Product Post for the next few weeks. I may not have a magnificent curly moustache like your usual host, but what I do have is a whole bunch of cool new products!
Hey, I could get used to this! I mean, talking about all of these sweet new products may not be easy but somebody has to do it, right? The big Simon game (nicknamed "EL Simón") was a fun build and I hope it gets you thinking about how you might be able to use EL Panels in your next project! The code for EL Simón is also available on the EL Panel product pages. Well, I guess it's about time to look at the product line-up for this week:
Electroluminescence might just be my favorite optical phenomenon. EL materials are used to make all sorts of things from computer displays and nightlights to internet celebrities! These new EL products can be used in the same way as the EL wire that we sell. The EL panel is 10 centimeters square, comes in four different colors and is great for backlighting displays and signage. The EL tape is a meter long, comes in five different colors and is ideal for illuminating steps, pathways or... your favorite hat!
Our game controller triggers make a really cool input for microcontroller projects but sometimes they aren't very easy to mount. We've solved that problem by creating a handy breakout board! Simply snap your trigger assembly onto the board, solder the potentiometer pins in place and you'll have three mounting holes and some nice solid headers that you can use to mount the trigger to your project.
The FEZ Panda II is an enhanced version of the original FEZ Panda with On-board microSD socket, Real Time Clock, and an easily accessible 40-pin female header that exposes the extra IOs. That's right, same .NET Micro Framework as the original but with more of the stuff you love. And if you aren't a .NETMF fan, the Panda II has JTAG access so you can use your own firmware.
Sparkle is Aniomagic's avant-garde way to make interactive textiles, paper, ceramics, and environments. They've made it so easy to implement that anyone can create interactive works of art. Our resident e-textiles specialist, Dia, has made a tutorial video about Sparkle that you should definitely check out if you're at all interested in what e-textiles with Aniomagic is all about. While we're on the subject, we apologize for her video being cut a few seconds short, our talented videographer is out of town but he'll no-doubt have this fixed within minutes of his return.
Along with our Sparkle kits, we also have 5-packs of Sparkle Lightboards. Use these to add more light to your Sparkle-based e-textile project. You can use up to 20 lightboards with a single Sparkle board so there's no reason not to go crazy with them. They come in five colors: Diamond (white), Emerald (green), Sapphire (blue), Amethyst (purple) and Rose Quartz (pink).
I'm also excited to announce five upcoming classes! On October 11th, we'll be hosting the Simon Sketch Class, where you can learn how to turn your Simon game into a drawing tool for your computer (and pick up some knowledge about writing Processing code along the way). Halloween is approaching and we here at SparkFun take costumes very seriously, so on October 15th we're offering a Halloween LilyPad Costume Class so you can add some extra attitude to your Halloween costume using the ProtoSnap LilyPad Dev Board. I'll be leading a repeat of our popular Introduction to Arduino class on November12th, this is a great class for anyone who's interested in learning embedded electronics but doesn't know where to start. The next day our new member of the education department, Jeff Branson, will be teaching ATMega In-Depth. Come and learn how to use the awesome power of the ATMega328 outside of the Arduino development board! Finally, on December 3rd, we're having an Exciting XBee Class where you can learn all about incorporating XBee radios into your wireless projects.
Well I think that just about covers it for this week, but I'll be back next Friday with even more new products so don't forget to come check 'em out!
