SMD July – Build MakeyMakey on July 24th at VHS

When Kickstarter came to VHS to talk about launching campaigns they showed MaKeyMaKey as an example. They chose well. This has to be close to the most fun you can find in a circuit. You can find out lots about it online, it is even more fun than it looks!

MaKeyMaKey is open hardware, all the information we need to build the project is available online and we’re building them at VHS this month. “The code is beerware; if you see me (or any other SparkFun employee) at the local, and you’ve found our code helpful, please buy us a round!”.

The real MaKeyMaKey is a quality product finished in a nice box with clip leads etc.  You’re getting a bag of parts here and a cheap chinese pcb.  It works, it looks a bit substandard compared to the real thing, but it works well and you built it!

The parts on this board are mostly 0603 so the soldering is reasonably difficult.  The pins on the IC are 0.8mm apart, this is the same as the cpu on the internet of things board and not that hard (the very fine pitch stuff is usually 0.5mm or even 0.4mm spacing).  Please consider a beginners class before this one if this is your first time.  If you’ve made any of the other projects in our workshops you’ll be fine.  Please plan on coming for 2 weeks or doing some homework, there are a lot of parts on this board.

The socket connectors like the ones on the real MakeyMakey are quite expensive so I’ve added them as an additional option – you can see one in the photo below, there is just 1 at the bottom.  If you don’t choose them you’ll get pins like the 3 shown in the photo below to keep the cost down.  Both work fine, there is more risk of a short to something metal with the pins.

There are only 11 tickets for sale at the moment.  I’ll rerun next month with another 10 tickets – there seems to be a shortage on the cpus at the moment.  If there is more demand than that, I’ll do another pcb run (takes 4 weeks).

If you want clip leads, I suggest these on ebay for $2.30 inc. shipping, they fit the holes in MaKeyMaKey nicely.

Refunds are possible, please contact me – you may need to find someone else to do the project or do it another time.

What: SMD soldering workshop
Where:VHS 270 E 1st Ave
When:July 24th at 7pm
Cost:$18.50 plus eventbrite fees
Tickets:http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/makeymakey-smd-soldering-workshop-tickets-12142944875