Bench Talk

With a bit of clever design and construction, it is possible to create a very striking snowflake pattern generator as part of a holiday light display. Here are four implementation ideas for a homemade device that will surely be the coolest front yard ornament on your block.

The essential hardware innovation question of “If you build it, will customers buy it?” keeps every maker, innovator, and founder of a startup awake at night. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to answer that question before investing a significant amount of time and money in a new idea.

Corporations and universities continue to play a key role in developing new technologies, but innovation is becoming more open than ever before. Easy idea sharing and development tools accessible to almost anyone are changing the face of innovation.

The Politecnico di Torino, one of the leading academic institutions in in Italy, recently inaugurated their new laboratory, CLIK (Contamination Lab & Innovation Kitchen), a space where students can work together in an informal way. As an interface between academia and entrepreneurship, CLIK provide students not only with the opportunity to develop electronic systems, but also opportunity to learn how to present them in an appropriate way. A hackathon started the new installation, and Mouser Electronics as a sponsor sent its EMEA specialists.

When it comes to making a Maker, education, mentoring, and big ideas are key. Projects become about the journey of problem solving, and big ideas.

Never before in the history of invention has it been so easy to turn an idea into a reality. The Maker Movement has proven that there are still plenty of great products to be built and companies to grow. Many folks who are not classically trained in any technical field are becoming empowered to design, build, and create in ways that until recently were just simply not possible.

“They don’t make things like they used to.” But there may still be some hope; today’s maker movement, helped along by open source hardware, may be able to replenish some of the awe that the Industrial Revolution took from us. Not to disrespect mass production, I’m as much a fan of affordable goods as the next person, but it seems sterile now. Products seem manufactured, not thoughtfully designed and crafted.

The engineering profession and the Maker movement are both driven by the fundamental notion that if you can dream it, you can build it. Now more than ever, individuals and small teams are empowered to turn ideas into functional prototypes without the need for significant upfront capital investment. The combination of affordable electronics design tools (e.g. Mouser's MultiSIM Blue), open source software licensing, desktop manufacturing equipment (e.g. 3D printers and CNC machines, and PCB manufacturing services (e.g. PCB Assembly Express) that cater to small volume productions are making the niche product design affordable and easier than ever before.

I’ll cut right to the chase here: I’m not an engineer. By education, I’m a technical writer. By pastime, I’m a musician, homebrewer, reader, cyclist, record collector, house cleaner, and animal lover. In the past couple of years, I’ve added the mantle of maker. Or tinkerer. Or DIYer. Whatever you want to call it, I built a circuit from a handful of components — and it works! You may remember your first successful build and your sense of accomplishment. Here’s my story.

“Dad, what’s a circuit?” Coming from my nine-year old daughter every question is perilous, but this one was precious because it touches something I love, and even more rare it is a question I can answer. My talking about circuits quickly turned into showing about circuits; in a few minutes we were digging through the electrics bin in the garage for parts. We found some three-color LED strips (leftover from a previous Mouser purchase) and away we ran.