We are working on series of kit projects that fall into the ‘make it in an afternoon’ category. They’ll range from cheap, super simple kits aimed mainly at young makers through to sophisticated kits that older makers can use to impress their friends. We’re starting with a list of about ten kits. We’ll bring you more news as we have it.
In the meantime, if you have an idea for a kit add it in a comment below.
Our first crowd-funding campaign was for the Serial LCD Adaptor kits. The product page in the AusThai Shop gives you some of the details on the operation of the kit. We thought it would be useful to give a general overview of how you might use the kit.
The obvious advantage has been stated a few times now. The number of pins you will use on your microcontroller is greatly reduced. The Serial LCD Adaptor works with three types of serial link and has two operating modes to give you maximum flexibility. Continue reading Using the Serial LCD Adaptor for LCDs
Here is just one possible application of the Serial LCD Adaptor kit. Using a raspberry Pi and just four wires you can create a headless web server. In this example we use the LCD to display the server status without the need for a HDMI display.
The possibilities for this serial adaptor are endless. We crowdfunded this project several years ago. You can buy them now in the AusThai Shop:
Serial Adaptor Kit for LCD displays
For just $6 you can have one of these kits.
This project is intended for our collection of easy ‘make it in an afternoon’ soldering kits.
It will be a small board with 9 dual colour LEDs arranged in the usual Tic-Tac-Toe pattern. There will be nine small buttons arranged in the same way below the LEDs. There will be an additional LED to indicate whose turn is next. A long press on the centre button will clear the screen for a new game. A second long press will select one of three modes. Mode 1 will be one human player against the machine, human goes first, mode 2 will be one human player against the machine, machine goes first and mode 3 will be two human players.
So it should be fun to build and fun to play afterwards.
My daughter (5 years old) recently brought home a set of special dice she had made at school. There were three dice, two with six different consonants on them and one with six vowels on it ( the ‘a’ was repeated). The idea is you roll the dice and then sound out the word.
This gave me the idea for a soldering kit. Continue reading CVC phonics practice kit
This project is intended for our collection of easy soldering kits.
It will be a medium sized board with 42 dual colour LEDs arranged in the usual Connect-4 pattern. There will be seven small buttons arranged below the LEDs, one for each column. There will be an additional LED to indicate whose turn is next. A long press on any button will clear the screen for a new game. A second long press will select one of three modes. Mode 1 will be one human player against the machine, human goes first, mode 2 will be one human player against the machine, machine goes first and mode 3 will be two human players.
We are looking at the algorithm for the machine player on this one. It is not a well known algorithm like the one we will use in the Tic-Tac-Toe project. Any algorithm geniuses out there want to make suggestions?
With the $6 LCD Adaptor Kit you can go from this…
To this…
We are currently crowdfunding the $6 LCD Adaptor Kit on Indiegogo here.
AusThai Solutions has been in business for 13 years, operating well on traditional funding models and conventional marketing approaches. So the question might be asked: why are we now venturing into crowdfunding? It is a very good question and the answer involves a number of reasons.
Our Christmas Soldering Kit is now up on the crowd-funding site indiegogo. Click here to take a look at it. Tell your friends.
Better still, give us some support and take away a fun soldering project for Christmas.
The campaign is running until the 10th of December 2015. If you make a contribution before the 30th of November you will have the kit in time for Christmas.
Take a look… Tell your friends… Pick up a great perk…
