As part of the preparations leading up to the Pop-up Factory installation next week atO’Reilly’s Solid Conference, Marcelo Coelho and I went to China to work with sponsorSeeed Studio’s Shenzhen facility in order to produce parts for more than a thousand Alike wristbands.

Working with Seeed project manager Vivian Zhong, we set up in a conference room for the week to organize logistics for getting neoprene straps and assembled printed circuit boards (PCBA) produced and shipped. We also worked with her to source the components that will be used for the manufacturing demonstration in the Pop-up Factory itself at Solid.

In this video, Zhong shows us what’s going on in the factory, all the way from reels of components through various assembly and testing stations. Although the factory is working on many other projects in addition to Alike, we were fortunate enough to catch up to the Alike PCBA as they were in the testing phase.

This is a good video to watch if you have ever wondered what the actual process of bringing a connected device to life looks like. And Solid is a good place to go if you are interested in seeing a live demonstration of many of the technologies shown.

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