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EL Wire Blowout Sale Until 2013-04-14

I’ve got a lot of EL wire and it’s time I get rid of it to make room for more robot stuff.  From now until April 14, 2013 I’m offering all 5m EL Wire at 17% off.  Every kit includes a driver. All you have to add are two AA batteries.  Perfect for decorating your bike or your person.  If you come up with something creative, let us know!  We love to share pictures.  When they’re gone, they’re gone – I’m probably not going to restock them in the near future.

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MediaWiki for Internal Process Control

Every mistake is a lesson in disguise. Recently I’ve noticed:

• My memory, already bad, is getting worse.
• My number of steps in each task is growing, as are the number of tasks.
• My desire to operate flawlessly and keep everyone happy is extremely high.
• My desire to teach someone else how to do every little step of business process is crazy low to non-existent.

These things are in conflict with each other. My solution has been to write down every step of a task that repeats. Now I don’t have to try and hold it all in my head. When I need to do a job, I look it up. If I can’t find it, I create a new list.

…which works fine if there’s two or three lists. I quickly realized I was going to need a LOT more lists. Writing it on paper was crash-proof (yay) and hard to edit (boo). Solution? A MediaWiki set up on the LAN is now going to serve up all the documents office-wide. MediaWiki is the same software used for Wikipedia, so I know it’s been well tested.

I hope with this I’ll be able to refine my process and build a kind of “Choose your own adventure” for new employees.  Need to know how to do something?  Look it up!

The next big challenge will be predicting when I need to order parts so that they arrive just before I run out of that part.  I couldn’t do that before I started ordering and making sales but as the data builds up I should be able to plan ahead very nicely.  I’m not even going to bother looking for an open source solution – to work right it’s got to be completely integrated into my store.  I don’t want to have to copy data back and forth, I just want a notice saying “it’s time to order [number] units more of [part x]”.

Do you have a favorite way to stay organized? Share! It pleases my OCD.

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Stewart Platform Sneak Peek

I didn’t have any plans to bring this robot to the store but if customers ask, customers get. Varun wrote to me all the way from India after finding this robot of mine on a completely different website. Wow! That’s serious interest.

I’ve cut a few Tamiya 70171 links in half and laser cut some pieces to make this very tiny Stewart platform. Sometime next week when the chaos of shipping these Makelangelo 2s dies down I’ll pull out the two year old code and get it working again. (Two years already? Time flies like a banana…)

Speaking of adding things to the store, I’m thinking of adding Shapelock and maybe Sugru to the menu. What would you like to see in the store? Make requests! We looooove feedback.

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2013-03-06 New Stuff

More new stuff! I love new stuff. Don’t you?

5V 0.3a Brushless DC motor, perfect for your HOG drive or a really fast vehicle.

1.5m USB male/male A to B cable, just what you need to connect your Arduino to your computer.

Spool of 500ft white thread. Why go to two stores for string and robot parts when you should be able to get it all in one place? Use this to string up your Skycam or Makelangelo.

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When will my Makelangelo 2 ship?

I ordered 4 different sets of parts from china three weeks ago. China Air mail package tracking (if you can find one that works) only says “shipment has left the country.” Not as thorough as I’m sure you’re used to, right?

Two boxes arrived yesterday. The first is half of a shipment of USB cables. The second had 1000 bobbins with white thread. I’m putting one in each kit so you can get set up painlessly.

The other two packages were ordered at the same time have the servos for the pen lifter and the female headers for the power to the motor shield. Fingers crossed they arrive today. That would mean every part is now in store and packages can start flowing out in the order customers purchased – longest waiting people first. If you see an email from us soon, it’s probably got your Canada Post tracking number.

I’m ecstatic and delighted that sales are rising, viewers are increasing, and the business part of this job is getting easier. It’s given me more time to focus on customer service and refining my technique.

Speaking of which, I’m going to start running predictive analysis on my inventory so I can order ahead and not run out of key components. Making people wait is the part of my job that sucks. Do you have any experience with that sort of thing? I’d love some advice.

Most importantly, thank you for your patience and support. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You let me live my dream and I only hope I can return the favor.

2013-03-06 18:00 UPDATE! UPS says the Servos are arriving on March 8. Perfect timing.