Today is known as black Friday, it’s some type of Goth holiday, we think – so we decided to do a sale here on Adafruit. The following kits and items (below) are on sale 10% off – you also still get quantity discounting too! To get 10% off use the code BLACK on check out from now until Sunday 11:59pm ET 11/29/2009. We don’t many sales, so if you’re looking to give that special maker a gift that could spark a lifetime of learning – this is it!
There are a lot places you can get your holiday gift this year. We hope you’ll consider Adafruit – we’re open source hardware fanatics, we provide tons of tutorials, documentation, unique kits and we have a black cat (Mosfet). Happy Goth, cat, er, black Friday!
Kits on sale:
FUN AND GAMES! In this section we have clock kits, musical pencils, TV turn-off fun, electronics that spell words in the air and images appear on your bicycle wheels and mathematical LED displays!
Ice Tube Clock kit – v1.1. This is our first clock kit design, made with a retro Russian display tube! Hundreds of makers have build this clock from us and they love it – we think this is the gift for the electronic’s enthusiast in your life… Looks great in home and the office!
Assembled Drawdio fun pack – v1.1. Drawdio is an electronic pencil that lets you make music while you draw! This fun pack has all the fun without the soldering. Essentially, its a very simple musical synthesizer that uses the conductive properties of pencil graphite to create different sounds. Great for kids! There’s also a kit version if you’d like to build it yourself or with someone you’d like share the gift of electronics with!
TV-B-Gone Kit – Universal v1.2. Tired of all those LCD TVs everywhere? Want a break from advertisements while you’re trying to eat? Want to zap screens from across the street? The TV-B-Gone kit is what you need! This ultra-high-power, open source kit version of the popular TV-B-Gone is fun to make and even more fun to use. This version can be used in both “North American/Asia” as well as “Europe/UK” areas (basically, the whole world)!
MintyBoost Kit – v2.0. Make your own iPod/iPhone/GPS/etc… battery-pack and recharger! This project includes all the electronic parts necessary to build your own MintyBoost: a small & simple (but very powerful) USB charger for your iPod (or other mp3 player), camera, cell phone, and any other gadget you can plug into a USB port to charge.
MiniPOV 3 Kit – V 3.0. Spell words in the air! A simple POV toy for beginners who are looking to learn how to solder, how to program microcontrollers, or make LED blinky toys. Because the programmer is built into the kit, one does not need a special “microcontroller programmer”. This version can be used with PCs (Linux/Unix or Windows) and Macs (running MacOS X and with a USB/serial converter). A parallel port version is also available.
SpokePOV Kit. Make pictures appear on your bicycle wheels as you ride! The SpokePOV kit can display any image your imagination can come up with. Open source hardware and software let you modify, hack and create amazing images! You might also want to pick up the serial programmer of the USBTiny ISP to program the SpokePOVs.
Game of Life kit. In 1970, John Conway came up with a 1-player game called Game of Life. The Game of Life is a mathematical game that simulates ‘colonies’ that grow or die based on how crowded or lonely they are and is known for the way it creates a beautiful organic display out of randomness. Here is a design for a simple electronic project that plays Conway’s Game of Life. Make one kit and keep it on your desk, or attach multiple kit modules together to create a large display.
Fuzebox kit v1.0. The Fuzebox is a fully open-source, DIY 8-bit game console. It is designed specifically for people who know a little bit of programming to expand into designing and creating their own video games and demos. A full-featured core runs in the background and does all the video and audio processing so that your code stays clean and easy to understand.
YBox2 Kit – v1.1. The YBox2 is a DIY networked set-top box. Connect it to your TV and you can design customized content to be delivered direct from the Internet. This project is great for people who want a new platform to experiment with. The video and Internet cores are ready to go and easy to work with. We have some example widgets that demonstrate the YBox2’s capability, and the whole project is open source so you can start hacking your own. If you’ve ever been curious about the Parallax Propeller chip, the YBox2 is a perky little platform with tons of accessories.
Next up, AVR development, Arduino accessories, shields (music, motors, internet!), packs, SIM card readers and more!
USBtinyISP AVR Programmer Kit. Simply the best and most inexpensive AVR programmer out there! USBtinyISP is a simple open-source USB AVR programmer and SPI interface. It is low cost, easy to make, works great with avrdude, has both 6 and 10 pin standard ISP cables, is AVRStudio-compatible and tested under Windows and MacOS X. Using this programmer and avrdude you can program any in-circuit “serial” programmable chip that avrdude supports (which is nearly all of them). It does not do JTAG or High Voltage programming. You can re-program Arduino’s (and ‘minimal arduinos’) using this programmer.
Boarduino. Breadboard-Arduino... If you’ve ever struggled to use a solderless breadboard with an Arduino, you understand how frustrating it can be! This clone acts just like an Arduino, and works with the latest Arduino software. For many projects it can even be preferable! The kit includes all parts necessary, the assembly is straightforward and well documented. Also comes in a USB version!
Adafruit Proto Shield for Arduino Kit – v.5. If you’re getting started with Arduino and only get one shield, this is the one to get. This prototyping shield is the best out there (well, we think so, at least). It works with NG, Diecimila and Duemilanove Arduinos. Check out these awesome specifications: a nice standard 0.1″x0.1″ prototyping grid with big pads. IC pattern for adding DIP ICs up to 20 pins, power rails down the middle and sides, a reset button and an extra general use button, 2 3mm general use LEDs, red and green, as well as 2 matching resistors, an ICSP header is up top if you like to upload to your Arduino using a programmer, surface-mount chip area for up to 14 SOIC size parts, compatible with either tiny breadboards or ‘standard’ breadboards with the rails removed. Every pin is brought out, including the new 3V and Reset header pins, 2 0.1uF capacitors on either side for extra power stability.
Get things moving! Move motors of many types with the Adafruit Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield for Arduino kit – v1.0 or the Motor party add-on pack for Arduino (includes the Motor shield). The Adafruit Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield is a a full-featured motor shield that will be able to power many simple to medium-complexity projects.
Make some noise! Turn it up with Adafruit Wave Shield for Arduino Kit or the Music & sound add-on pack for Arduino! Adding quality audio to an electronic project is surprisingly difficult. Here is a shield for Arduinos that solves this problem. It can play up to 22KHz, 12bit uncompressed audio files of any length. It’s low cost, available as an easy-to-make kit. It has an onboard DAC, filter and op-amp for high quality output. Audio files are read off of an SD/MMC card, which are available at nearly any store. Volume can be controlled with the onboard thumbwheel potentiometer.
Where you at? Adafruit GPS logger shield kit – v1.1. GPS shield for Arduino kit with data-logging capability. After building this easy kit, you can create your own geo-locative project. This shield is designed to make GPS projects straight-forward and easy. Plug in a supported GPS module and run any of the example Arduino sketches for parsing GPS data (NMEA sentences), logging to a FAT16-formatted SD flash memory card and storing analog sensor data along with precise location, date and time in CSV format. The shield is designed specifically for use with the EM-406a module: the small surface-mount GPS connector is pre-soldered for you.
Adafruit Ethernet (XPort/WIZnet) shield for Arduino kit – v1.2. Get your Arduino talking on the internet! This is a shield that provides a lot of flexibility in adding Ethernet/Internet connectivity to Arduinos. You can use either an XPort module or a WIZnet module as the ‘engine’. Both modules have pros and cons, so you can decide which is better for you. You know all those project that have some physical object “tweeting”? This is the kit to get!
XBee Adapter kit – v1.1. Go wireless with Xbee. This adapter board is designed to make adding wireless point-to-point or mesh networking easy. We looked at all the XBee adapter boards available and decided to design something better. If you need to do wireless with computers or Arduinos, this is the adapter to get!
Adjustable breadboard power supply – v1.0. Power up! A good power supply is essential to electronic projects. While there are many existing designs for adjustable power supplies, this one makes improvements that make it more useful for hobby designs.
SIM Reader kit – v1.0. This is a SIM card reader/writer kit for experimentation and investigation of SIM & Smart cards. Once the kit is assenbled, accompanying software can be used to read and write from the card. Together they can be used to backup stored SIM card data, recover deleted SMS’s and phone contacts, examine the last 10 phone numbers dialed, etc. (Despite being called a SIM reader, it can also write to SIM cards). This project is fairly easy and can be soldered together within an hour, even if you’ve never soldered before!
Relive your 24 fantasies! Bomb Defuser – Pocket electrician – Ever worry about getting trapped in an building with a bomb that’s about to go off and you have to do some quick wire cutting but you remember you left your toolbox with the wirestrippers at home??? Well, even if you haven’t, this high quality keychain-size pocket tool will come in very useful in many other situations! For the first time we’re offering this at 10% for BLACK FRIDAY!
Remember! To get 10% off use the code BLACK on checkout from now until Sunday 11:59pm ET 11/29/2009. It is only for the kits in this list.