MindKits News and Blog

We just brought in a plethora (yeah, gotta love that word) of new goodies which we think you are going to love!
So far we're counting 13 new items ranging from serial driven LED displays, XBee breakouts, a new Arduino book, the Arduino Screw Shield, Flex sensor, humidity and temp sensor, SparkFun Sensor kit and the trusty old 9v battery snap.

Best thing to do is to Check out the goodies here and if you have any questions just drop us an email/contact form and we'll get right back to  you.

Regards,
Tim
MindKits Chief Ninja

I just hate it when I'm on the verge of finishing a world changing Arduino based robot and that vital 220ohm pull down resister just isn't anywhere to be found so we've alleviated that problem by putting together a bag of 13 of the worlds most essential resisters, capacitors, and an LED for your bot building pleasure and available for a limited time. Now when you reach for the component we hope it is more likely to be there thanks to MindKits.com.

For a limited time we're giving you a goodie bag on all orders $50 and over (including GST and shipping) so its not hard to get one.

Thanks for supporting us through our first few months and for all the fantastic feedback we've read from people loving locally availible Arduino at reasonable prices. With support like we've seen so far, we're here to stay.

Tim
MindKits Chief Ninja

Persistence of Vision Kit- MiniPOV3 - See how an Adafruit MiniPOV3 Kit comes in handy for Valentines Day. These make a great beginners kits with utterly loads of extra learning and expansion to keep you learning and entertained for hours.

If you’re wondering what Persistence of Vision is you’re not alone. Some say it’s a bug in our biology but it comes about because of the chemical electric nature of our eyes. When we see light, it kicks off a chemical reaction and we get a zap to the brain that tells us what we’re seeing. The thing is that this chemical reaction takes some time and as a result the light that we saw could be long gone but the chemical reaction still carries on telling us its there. We’ve all seen this before when waving a sparkler in the air at Guy Fawkes when moving it quickly through the air – it leaves what looks to us to be a trail. The end result? With a line of 8 Led’s we can write words in thin air. Oh the opportunities for mischief are endless!
Very cool – hacking the wetware!

We're back after the break and thought I would share this next link to Ted.Com and a talk on Persistence of Vision.
Inventor Nick Sears demos the first generation of the Orb, a rotating persistence-of-vision display that creates glowing 3D images. A short, cool tale of invention.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/nick_sears_demos_the_orb.html

If you're looking to play around with persistence of vision yourself you can do so with the MiniPov3 Kit available from MindKits. You can program it to say anything you wish.
http://www.mindkits.com/_product_36247/Mini_POV-_Persistence_of_Vision_Kit