OscarPedroso

Not sure that this is the right place to post this but I'm throwing it out there for feedback.

We've made a recent pivot to our education-tech startup by offering our robotics and coding curriculum to parents that are new to homeschooling their kids.

With rampant school closures, a few families have reached out to us asking for hands-on lessons that include materials and live instruction.

Is there anyone else out there with this problem?

Since this is new to us, we're giving away four 1-hr workshops for free for anyone looking to sign up a child (grades 4-12). We're just charging for the kit materials which we'll deliver to you. In return, we'd love your feedback to improve the experience.

Projects focus on beginners and advanced learners with activities ranging from building basic circuits to WiFi robots, synthesizers, and other electronics. Below is a link to receive more info or you can reach out to oscar@thimble.io if you have specific questions. Thanks all! :)

https://www.thimble.io/remote-learning-covid19/

Hi, my name’s Oscar. I’ve been messing around with electronics for most of my life (early 30s) and have served as a robotics mentor for both students and adults. A couple buddies of mine (Dave, Mike) and I have been kicking around ideas for making learning electronics more accessible and fun for a while now.

The idea that we came up with is http://www.thimble.io. We want to motivate folks to learn and build electronics by featuring a different kit each month. The first one is a 2-wheel wifi robot. It is built around a laser-cut platform and arduino-derivative PCB I designed. (Featuring the popular esp8266 wifi module and a motor controller).

We started with the idea of virtual hackathons where we’d send everyone the same base kit and host a competition to see who performs the best (ie: which robot goes through a pre-designed course the fastest, who solves the problem the most interesting way, creativity, etc).

But, as we started talking to folks at Makercon, Makerfaire, etc. we also realized that most people we talked to want kits and a guided way to learn.

The basic idea is you get a kit delivered to your house once a month (or every other month if you want), you can use the learning app for any part you’re unfamiliar with and use it to guide you through the build. If you’re ambitious or more advanced, you can add additional sensors and functionality and enter your build into our monthly contests with prizes awarded by a unique panel of judges.

If this is interesting to you, we’d love to know your background in electronics (beginner, expert, etc)? What kind of kits would you like to see? What are your objectives from the kits? Any more feedback you have or questions are appreciated.

We're eager for feedback, so if you have any questions for us about this project or even the experience of working on a hardware startup, just ask.

Thanks!

Hi all,

Does anyone know of a decent startup lawyer in the Bay Area? I'm in NY but moving out west and want to can my current one because all I seem to get are bills and very little council on things that really matter. Happy to have a discussion on the side.

thanks!

OP

Hi there,

Just doing a little bit of customer discovery for a site I'd like to launch based on some feedback I received for a previous idea. (which wasn't so hot.)

Basically, hardware and software developers would join forces to work on specific hardware projects. (Say John Smith posts a project to have two arudinos communicate using WiFi Direct and he is seeking help on the wifi part while he focuses on the motor controller stuff. He is willing to pay $350 to have someone work with him in parallel and speed up the project.)

Does this resonate with anyone out there?

Thanks!

howdy,

I recently launched a website this past spring (www.gradfly.co) to narrow the gap between hardware and software developers. It's a pivot from another concept we were working on. I'm trying to see whether there's truly a need for this before I invest more time and money into it.

In a nutshell, it's a repository and QA forum for hardware projects like Github and Stack Overflow are for code. It would be a site where professional and enthusiast developers (both hardware and software) come together to collaborate and become part of a "crowd-instructing" community. You'd find resources, talent, and example projects to help with products or concepts you're trying to design.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be awesome.

Thanks!