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Should every asset have a SKU?

I’ve been working on my Wiki today. I added a long overdue table for shipping. I’ve displayed it here vertically for ease of reading, along with my first entry.

Order #	100
SKU	??
Name	LG900N Laser cutter
Qty	1
Supplier	G Weike
Shipper
Tracking #
Order cost	$**** USD
Import cost
Total cost
Order date	2012-05-25
Arrival date
Delivery time

This way I hope to be able to predict future order times better and avoid “stock outs” or product shortages. I only have one order at the moment, so on a whim I put it into the list. …and then it got me thinking, which is always dangerous. The field for SKU makes me wonder if I should give the laser cutter a SKU. More generally, should *every* asset have a SKU? Here are the pros and cons I see.

Pros

Total asset management: every item in the shop can be tracked, along with it’s depreciation, original cost, cost over time. Items could be easily re-ordered or sold (example: 3D printers). They could be marked for anti-theft purposes and given a QR code for easy how-to lookup, simplifying future employee training. Adding each item would only have to be done once.

Cons

It’s resource consuming to file every item and resources (especially time) are very precious. Some items are labelled individually, some are labelled by type – does this cause a filing headache? How can filing info become invalid or out of date?

I don’t know a lot of highly organized and/or highly effective people – they’re off getting stuff done, I suppose. I’d love to compare notes. Have you got any thoughts, pro or con, to share?

As I look at this I realize the table is a bit misleading – a single order might have multiple items of different type, each with it’s own SKU, in a many-to-one relationship. Dividing up the import costs could be trouble!

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A Vending Machine full of electronic parts & kits

VHS used to be one block from a grocery store. Getting food and drink downtown is so easy it wasn’t even an afterthought. Between my parking space and the hacking space there were two bars, two grocery stores, a macdonald’s, and a pizza parlor.

New VHS is a little more remote. Great big size, much cleaner environment… no food or drink. On foot it would take at least two minutes to walk to the nearest food source, a Macdonald’s. Apparently the burger joint next to them is even worse than Micky D’s, so that’s out. In the other direction is the Foundation – great if you want to wait 30 minutes for a table.

If you know anything about me by now, you know I see an opportunity and I take it. That’s why I’m looking to get a snack machine. Being that it’s at the VHS, I don’t see why it should *just* be food and drink. What about RPis? What about Arduinos? What about TV-B-Gones? Sadly, I don’t think lock picking kits will be included.

Now I’m not totally selfish, I plan to give 50% of profits back to the club. The rest is for restocking, insurance, and my time. If the machine pays itself off then maybe even more can go to the club. I plan to get a dirt cheap model and hack at it to add my own touch screen and maybe have it email me when it is running low.

What you’d want to see in a hackspace vending machine? Comment below.

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What’s the Best Way to Document the Creation and Abilities of a Robot?

Reddit Robotics’ group has a lot of smart people. I know they’re smart because they ask really great questions, like when MrPotatoJunior asked this one: What is the best way to document the creation and functionality of a robot?

This is a great question – staying organized is so hard with so many projects.

Does your method work?

Let’s see some qualifications first, hey? I sell robots online. My method has been tested in a working environment and refined for the last 18 months. Here are some projects I documented on Instructables before “going pro”.

• How to build a mural drawing robot
• How to build a hexapod
• How to wire a desktop CNC machine

The format is the same each time: overview, BOM, step-by-step assembly instructions, copy of source code, final notes. Today I would add design files for parts that need to be manufactured at the end and the BOM can reference them along with a manufacturing estimate. I would also add testing wherever appropriate – not just before or after code. It may require several test programs to validate each piece works before trying to turn on the whole machine.

Drawings

Drawings are critical. You will develop great drafting skills in order to communicate your ideas clearly. Nothing I’ve found is faster for explaining how things fit together. Nothing I’ve found is faster for checking design ideas before investing time in a 3D modelling program.

For drawings I use an 11″x14″ sketchbook. Most drawings take up the center 1/9th of the page, leaving me room for notes and corrections around the edges. Date, project name, part name, and version on every page. One idea per page. I go through a lot of sketchbooks. I sometimes put a piece of tape sticking out the top of the sketchbook as a page marker so I can find important stuff fast.

When I make a 3D model I store it in projects/part_name/version-date for the filename. Same goes for drawings of circuits. I have a separate folder projects/project_name/version which then references the parts in other folders. This works great because sometimes I only make one model of a part (like a NEMA17 stepper) and reuse it in many other projects.

BOMs

I keep a Bill Of Materials (BOM) in an excel sheet in projects/project_name/version. Every part, where I got it, what it cost, and how many I had to get at once – some things only come in a 10 pack. Some get cheaper when bought in bulk.

Version control is your friend. Nothing sucks like breaking the design of a well-functioning robot when all I wanted to do was experiment with a new idea.

Physical storage

For physically storing my projects, I use clear plastic shoe boxes from Home Depot. $0.96ea. labelled on the front, stacked three high. Only one project needs a double-wide box. Only one needs a 2×2 sized box. The rest are actively being used (like 3d printers) and don’t go in boxes.

Code

When documenting code, I write the intention before the code. So I explain what I’m going to do in comment lines and then I write the code between the comment lines. There’s no such thing as “obvious” or “self-documenting” code – what’s easy for you might be hard for me. Heck, sometimes what’s easy for me is hard two months later when I don’t remember writing it!

For more information, read all the responses on Reddit here.

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What should Marginally Clever work on next?

I have a break between two maker faires and lots of time while the Makelangelo draws portraits of people who came to our booth.
There’s lots of things I *could* build. The question is: which one would you like to see the most?

Vote here or write in your own idea.

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Laser Cutter Update – it’s on the boat!

We’ve had several production problems over the last few months. Growing pains that we are taking on with gusto. In order to avoid issues with 3rd party suppliers we’ve made the choice to get our own laser cutter in-house. It will improve production, speed up R&D, and generally be frikkin’ lasers. The machine is an LG900N from G Weike, who come highly recommended.

When we looked at their website the initial impression wasn’t good – the whole page was broken in ugly ways and it felt very sloppy. Still… the reviews said these guys were the best, so we made a deal: we fixed their home page in exchange for an extra laser tube and a few features. Every challenge is an opportunity in disguise.

You can see more images here.

For those of you who have ordered a kit and want to know how long it will be, please follow the boat’s progress here.

While the boat works it’s way over here I’ll be attending the Seattle Mini Maker Faire, fleshing out our new online store (still in alpha), ramping up R&D on the drink mixing robot, and generally trying to be as awesome as possible.

If you’re liking what you see and you live in Vancouver, come out to the VHS and join in our many exciting projects. Too far away? Please Like us on Facebook to keep up to date. With your help we can keep making awesomebots.