Electronics Kit Subscription Service

[craigfoo]

Your opinion and feedback is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[c4757p]

If I subscribe to a service where I get monthly household DIY projects delivered to my house, and next June an excavator shows up, I'm going to be a bit peeved. What kind of electronics projects?

[craigfoo]

Haha, good point. I mean small projects such as making LEDs do something or infrared barrier. Small, "educational" projects.

[free_electron]

We talking schematics ? Or kit as in board and parts and schematics ?
Id like to have a kit that lets tou construct a board with a few large xilinx virtex fpgas and a few quad core arm processors. I'll chip in my 5$ a month....

You'll have to be more specific. I dont need a subscription service for a kit containing an led and resistor .....

[xrunner]

I said maybe.

Depends on the complexity and the cost. For me, I might want more complicated kits maybe four times a year. Just another idea on the timing.

[MacAttak]

You need to be slightly more specific. There is a world of difference between a throwaway "blinky" kit and something far more involved like a kit to build a PSU or other lab gear.

Or perhaps you are already considering having different subscription levels with different levels of project difficulty?

[Corporate666]

I think subscription services work well for things that are generally inexpensive that you already use on a regular basis and would like to experience some variety that you wouldn't otherwise get.

Do electronic kits fall into that category?  For me, no... because there is a huge variation in what is interesting to me.  There might be 100+ different subjects for kits out there, but only a small subset are interesting to me.  Plus, it's not like I build a kit on a periodic basis.

So I voted no, for me personally.

[dfmischler]

What do you have in mind?

Professional grade GPSDO kit: yes.
Inherently accurate voltage standard kit: yes.
100 ps rise time pulse generator kit: yes.

Blink an LED: what the hell for?

[Lightages]

If you are going to do this, it can't be toys only. A power supply kit, a data acquisition kit, a class A headphone amplifier, SPDIF to analog amplifier kit, sound card "oscilloscope" interface kit, etc...

My point is if you want to do this it needs to have some final value the subscriber. They can't be projects that then just sit on the shelf. If the subscriber sees that things will be useful, you will get much more interest.

[craigfoo]

I was thinking kits like these:

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11087
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9612
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10212

It'd be mostly for education purposes for people like us, teaching the younger generation.

[c4757p]

I think there's potential, but you're not going to find many people on this forum who will say yes.

[Lightages]

Based on the kits you have listed as examples, 1 out of 3 useful things? I say forget it with those ideas.

[craigfoo]

I think there's potential, but you're not going to find many people on this forum who will say yes.

Touche.

[pickle9000]

I would think pcb of the month (sounds like the Radio Shack battery of the month card) perhaps 6 square inches for 6 bucks. And whatever could be squeezed on. That way you could everything from a simple dev board to ic adapter or even a test instrument of some sort. Maybe more than one item per month when space allows.

[c4757p]

I think you will find more subscribers if you raise the bar a bit. '"Uh-oh" Battery Level Indicator Kit'? Are you kidding me? (Sparkfun sure has a lot of useless crap...) The dice die, goddammit, it's singular!!! kit has potential for beginners, but the microcontroller has to screw off. If it's going to be a useless little blinkie it's got to have educational potential. I say replace that MCU with a 555 generating a clock, a 74HC4017 ring counter, and a bit of creativity for the randomness. (Perhaps count at a relatively high speed, and only count when the button is held?) Then delve a bit into the theory behind it.

And use chunky SMD parts (0805 and bigger, SOIC). We don't need another generation of hobbyists scared to pick up a pair of tweezers. Include a flux pen and pair of SMD assembly tweezers with the first kit.

[Fsck]

Based on the kits you have listed as examples, 1 out of 3 useful things? I say forget it with those ideas.

Ditto. Toys seem pointless to me as well, they just waste space after they're built.

 If you're aiming for newbies:
a complete from-scratch good quality power supply is sort of the obvious basic suggestion. (especially if it includes winding your own transformer)
maybe a basic function generator, frequency counter, etc. tools that you may not necessarily need, but can be useful.

If you're aiming for vets: you're sort of screwed. too many interesting possibilities but most people have very specific interests and they often don't overlap.
a xilinx zynq with another FPGA combo board would be neat to play with for me, especially if it has a big fat chunk of RAM, and a decent to-PC connection so you can compute on it, versus say using CUDA.

[Strada916]

You might want to look at Siliconchip, Volt n Bolts, Practical Electronics, Talking Electronics just to name a few. They all more or less do what you are try to do. With the theory behind it. They range from beginner to advanced. Just be carefull as this type of thing is not easy to achieve. Personally I think Siliconchip is by far one of the leaders in this area along with Talking ELectronics. Have a look I guess we are spoilt here in Au, with choice and how our magazine subscriptions works. 

[Corporate666]

The kits are one thing.


But he's asking about "delivered monthly to your house".

From a business standpoint, what is the advantage for me, as a consumer, of having them delivered monthly to my house vs. just buying ones I am interested in from Sparkfun (or whomever) as I want them?

If you are delivering coffee, the advantage is you can offer me stuff I couldn't find anywhere else - because you are a distributor and you can afford to stock obscure stuff.

If you are delivering home goods that I would use anyway (like all the stuff I have on Amazon Subscribe-n-Save), you are saving me having to remember to buy that stuff, and ensuring I rarely have to go to the store to pick up housewares.


What is the advantage to the consumer of having a kit delivered monthly?

I can see the benefit to a school, for example, where they have a regular and ongoing need to source electronics kits perhaps.  But who are you looking to sell this service to and what is the value you are bringing to the table?

There are lots of things which could be done - but that doesn't always translate into competitive advantage and success in the market.

[vk3yedotcom]

The kits are one thing.


But he's asking about "delivered monthly to your house".

From a business standpoint, what is the advantage for me, as a consumer, of having them delivered monthly to my house vs. just buying ones I am interested in from Sparkfun (or whomever) as I want them?

Yep, the incentives have got to be right.

The only benefit I can see is as part of a structured training program. The electronic magazines in the '60s were full of technician training ads where you built stuff from a signal tracer to a VTVM and CRO.  You were promised big money and good jobs as a technician if you completed the course.  There's your incentive.  Do these still exist today? If not why not? I think of defunct private training courses when I go past the burnt out/empty Stotts College building in Flinders St, Melbourne.

Is the business model like health clubs where as you've paid that will make you more inclined to excercise?  If not you lose money.  I suppose it works for vocational education.

But for casual hobbyists (who build what they want when they want and don't want to be structured) or advanced professionals/hobbyists (who will develop/build from scratch, or will simply buy ready made as they don't need the training from a kit) I can't see it working.

There is also a trust thing.  Do you ask for $500 up front (great cashflow for the business but requires better budgeting ability and you're exposed to rising costs) or have it as a instalment as the kits are delivered, direct debit from the customers account?

[bitwelder]

Another question, since the idea involves material "delivered monthly to your house" is what is expected distribution range.
Worldwide? Only for delivery costs it can become already an expensive exercise in order to allow everybody to receive their kits in a reasonable amount of time.