by Rita Baladad
Quick Summary
The Maker Pavillion in the 2015 ALA Annual Conference exhibits hall appears to have expanded not only in number of vendors but beyond displaying just 3D printers.
The Maker Pavillion in the 2015 ALA Annual Conference exhibits hall appears to have expanded not only in number of vendors but beyond displaying just 3D printers.
Two vendors I noticed were promoting DIY electronics gadgets: littlelBits Electronics and SparkFun Electronics. These two vendors seem to be taking a RadioShack-approach to the 21st century by introducing the everyman to the Internet of Things. Additionally, creating and inventing these gadgets is a pathway to learning and developing programming skills. Paired together, gadgets + software = the Internet of Things (IoT). (As an aside, O'Reilly has a mighty interesting IoT newsletter.)
littleBit Electronics has a mission to "democratize hardware" and specializes in pre-packaged, modular electronics invention kits for the educational market, design agencies, and libraries.
Similar to littleBit Electronics, SparkFun Electronics also has a mission of education and accessibility: "our products and resources are designed to make the world of electronics more accessible to the average person." They offer kits as well as hardware a la carte, like an online Micro Center. Additionally, their "Department of Education" offers tutorials, classes, and workshops (they have an entire staff dedicated to education). To this end, they promote code sharing (Github) and open-source building platforms (Arduino).
