Maker Faire UK 2015
The Maker Faire UK has just happened in Newcastle – April 25th & 26th 2015. There were around 120 Makers in the Life Centre, with talks and performances also happening. It was really busy, with more than 10,000 attendees over the weekend.
The Makers are a friendly and enthusiastic bunch of people and the stalls were busy, with a lot of chatting going on. There were a lot of things to make, do and play, and it catered for all age groups.
There were a lot of tweets with the hashtag #MakerFaireUK if you want to check it out on Twitter.
Startup Funding
The Nexus Innovation Centre in Limerick have had a series of talks aimed at the startup community every month. This month the topic was startup funding.
They had three speakers –
A representative from AIB, who are the event sponsors, spoke about the importance of a business plan and what the bank would be looking for in a loan application.
Andrea Linehan from Grid Finance gave a talk on peer-to-peer lending, which is the crowdfunding of the lending world, and how it can help with startup funding.
Aidan O’Driscoll, a director with Irrus Investments and part of Cork BIC, spoke about what investors are looking for in a pitch.
Hardware Accelerator Programs
HAXLR8R – Hardware Accelerator Program
Silicon Valley based, this hardware accelerator program was started in 2011 by Sean O’Sullivan and Cyril Ebersweiler. The program involves mentoring and product time in Shenzhen, equity share/backing, crowdfunding support and positioning. The average backing is $250K.
Startup Hardware News
A Funny Thing Happened on my way to the Hackathon….
Strange things are happening in the world of hardware development. Ideas and gadgets, once the domain of large companies with big departments and budgets, are being brought to life by ‘little’ people with big ideas.
But that’s not the strangest thing, what’s really happening is that software and hardware are really starting to work together.
Upcoming Hardware Hackathons and Why You Should Think About Them!
Liam Casey, PCH International
“Hackathons are a great way to discover and support entrepreneurs who are passionate about brand, design and the customer experience. Hackathons are today’s garages where companies get their start.”
Startup Hardware News
Massimo Banzi, the very public face of Arduino, used Makezine to tell us about a rift in the core Arduino team. Gianluca Martino, another co-founder, has changed the makeup of their original vision for the startup.
Common Errors in 2 Layer Printed Circuit Board Files
Good files lead to good boards which in turn means your ideas become real faster!
These are some examples of errors that we see and that delay or worse
Missing layers in provided Gerber data.
Overlapping/buried drills.
ExtraMissing Solder Resist pads.
Rare un-terminated traces (prototype hobbyist’s).
Hardware Startup News 13/03/15
Amazon opens Amazon Exclusives store to sell Shark Tank and other ‘quirky’ products. One a few Amazon specialised stores offering the Amazon service.
Hardware Startup news 09/03/15
Vivek Wadhwa is an entrepreneur-turned-academic who is a co-author, with Farai Chideya, of the book “Innovating Women.” Mr. Wadhwa, 57, holds affiliations with Stanford, Duke and a Silicon Valley-based think tank called Singularity University. He is also a fixture on the lecture circuit and in the media, where he has frequently called on technology companies to address gender diversity.
What is a 2 Layer Printed Circuit Board?
We will start with a bit of a run through of how a 2 layer printed circuit board is put together. The double-sided PCB is made of epoxy glass with copper foil on both sides of the epoxy glass.
Our next step is to drill all the holes in the drill file. Then another layer of copper is added to the epoxy glass and copper. This will plate vias, component holes and traces.
