A couple of months ago, while visiting the element14 community blog, I chanced upon the "Tis the Season for Inventing" contest announcement. The challenge was to submit innovative ideas using either the Arduino, Raspberry-Pi or BeagleBone Black platforms.
I had just wrapped up my desktop CNC ShapeOko build and set it up at the Makers’ Asylum garage. This build used the Raspberry-Pi as the control computer for the CNC. It was hooked to the network via WiFi, and we could SSH in to it remotely from other computers. This made life easier as it meant we didn’t have to have a computer kept in close proximity of the CNC and muck it up with dust from the mill. On top of the Raspberry-Pi sat the AlaMode Arduino clone, that I had helped design along with my buddies at WyoLum. The ShapeOko itself was paid for by WyoLum. Since the build used both – a Raspberry-Pi and an Arduino Clone, I could have entered it in either category. I settled for the Raspberry-Pi category, since most existing CNC controllers already used an Arduino hooked up to an external Computer.
I pretty much forgot about this once I submitted my idea. So it was with great surprise (and a fair amount of dis-belief ) that I read the mail from element14 informing me that I’d won the first prize ! Woot ! Me and my friends at WyoLum decided to gift the Shopping Spree prize to the Makers’ Asylum to help kit up our makerspace with useful items.
I ordered out a bunch of stuff via the local retailer of element14 – CrazyPi – and cool hawtness just landed on my desk today. $1000 worth of goodies for all of you Makers to use at the Asylum.
Let’s get Makin’ !
Here’s some pictures of what’s in the Box :
- An 11" HDMI display
- Four Raspberry-Pi’s
- Two BeagleBone Black’s
- One Intel Edison
- Eight Arduino UNO’s
- One Arduino Mega
- A Robot Kit
- Some Power adapters, cables and breakout boards and odds and ends.