Finally! After many distractions, the software for my first kit is complete. The Door Prize Chooser / Three Dice Thrower is complete. Much like the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the center of the front panel says "Everyone is a winner!" which I hope describes the function of the kit.

The kit has 2 functions. If you turn it on and wait, you will see the 3 digits of the display just rolling around. I call that "eye candy". If you then press one of the 3 front panel buttons, you can step the numbers up from 0 to 999 to enter the highest random number you want to choose. Once you have selected a number, just wait 4 or 5 seconds and that number will start blinking in the display. Now press any button for a short period of time and then release it. You will see a number between 1 and the number you entered, inclusive. Each additional press of a button will result in the display showing you a new random number in the selected range.

The second function replaces the function of 1 to three 6 sided dice. Press any combination of the 3 buttons and turn on the power switch. The display will tell you that you are in the DICE mode. When you release the button(s), the display will show a zero or zeros. Now press any button and you will get a random roll of 1 to 3 dice shown on fhe display.

Of course it you forget and leave the unit on, it will power itself down so that the battery is conserved.

The kit comes with a 2 sided board plus all the parts, screws, nuts a front panel, in fact everything you need except for glue to hold on the front panel. All of that is explained in the docs that you can download from the web page. Or send email to joe@jarrett.com and I'll send a PDF of the docs.

Enjoy!
Joe Jarrett

What's Next?

I need some ideas for new kits. What would you like to see? I can develop hardware and software for PIC processors so the skys pretty much the limit there. I have thought about doing a survey on what all the other kit people are offering and perhaps there is some hole in the offerings that I could fill. Ideas????

My First Kit - Random Number Generator

I'm very close to productizing my first kit. I'm calling it a random number generator but what it really does and help you pick out numbers for door prizes. So one of the graphics on the front panel says its a "Door Prize Chooser". I'll post a picture. It works in the sort of meeting environment where everyone has to log in when they attend the meeting. Now you have a list of attendees, each with a serial number from the log. For example, you may have 85 people attending the meeting and they are then numbered between 1 to 85. With my product, you tell the box the max number, in this case 85, then every time you press a button you get a random number from 1 to 85.

I don't have the web page for Hill Country Kits up yet but when I do, I'll post the assembly manual on the web. Then you can see the instructions, the schematic, etc.

Search for Kit Related Blogs

I went looking for other Kit related Blogs and came upon this article:http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/1630025963.html. This isn't really a kit blog site. Its from the the Powersource Blog by the Tech Editor for EDN. But its a nice article called: 15 steps to starting your own electronic kit business. Not only was it an article of interest but there were a lot of comments associated with it.

Once I got into it, I found it was really written after the author attended a Maker Faire presentation by Limor Fried, the founder of Adafruit. It looks interesting and I plan to read and comment more on the article. In the meantime, I have discovered that Adafruit has a blog and I'll be subscribing to it also. http://www.adafruit.com/blog/

Oh, I quickly look down through the articles on the Adafruit blog and there seems to be a wealth of information there. Of humorous interest was the Arduino controlled etch-a-sketch! Sum fun, hey kid?

Start O Blog

I suppose if you plan to start a kit business, you should have a blog. In my case, there is a lot I can write about concerning designing a kit product, finding a place to get the boards and box made (if you want a box), buying the components for it at a reasonable price, etc. I will try to document what I do to create and market a kit.

In the meantime, I am also starting up a consulting business and you can find that blog at http://chipcorderguy.blogspot.com/. Between the two,I expect to spend a lot of time typing. See you there.