As we celebrate National Manufacturing Day on October 6, 2017, Nation of Makers recognizes the many maker organizations that are working in the manufacturing community. Read below for just a sample of some of these organizations. Please note, this is in no way a comprehensive or fully representative list of the many maker organizations that contribute to the American manufacturing community.
Adafruit – Founded in a dorm room in 2005 by MIT engineer Limor “Ladyada” Fried as an online learning resource and marketplace for do-it-yourself electronics, Adafruit is now a highly successful ($45M in revenue in 2016), 100% woman-owned (no loans, no venture capital), open-source U.S. manufacturer of electronics, marketplace, and learning resource located in the middle of Manhattan. Ranked #11 among the top 20 U.S. manufacturing companies by Inc. magazine, while still being inclusive and community-focused, Adafruit is a great example of maker to manufacturer in the U.S.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
