Formica Workshop : FAIL

We told you that we were going to present a workshop at 26C3 and sell kits. Well, we've failed. Revising the design was a greater undertaking than we could cram into the little free time we had before the conference.

We have made a number of design improvements:

Removed a few superfluous components from the circuit

Added the Hack Header - a 7-pin connector which breaks out battery power, regulated power, SPI, I2C, and GPIO. We'll be bringing out some "Backpacks" - expansion boards that sit on top of the robot and add functionality. We hope you will, too.

Added a connector to plug the robot into an EZ430 programmer

Added an M3 hole for a sturdy mechanical connection to backpacks, etc.

Increased the cuteness and comedy value of the robots by adding a pair of googly eyes.

These changes necessitated a complete redesign of the PCB. Selling the robots straight away would have been too risky, so we ordered a couple of prototype boards. I've assembled them, and we are part way through the testing process.

We've been working with a couple of companies in China to establish a reliable supply of motors and batteries.

Rob and I will be at 26C3, but won't be presenting a workshop. If you see us, slap us hard across the face. After four days of this, we'll be pretty motivated to start shipping the robots as soon as possible.

Finally, I should mention that we will start by selling mostly assembled PCBs. All you'll need to do is a little soldering to attach the motors, battery and charging contacts. One day we might even do that for you.

Some rough photos: