This newsletter was released on August 1, 2009.

Hi! This is the fourth edition of the NerdKits newsletter, which we use to 
keep you updated about things going on at NerdKits.

In this issue:
1. NerdKits and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
2. Our Video is Finalist in IEEE Competition (We need your vote!)
3. Tetris on a NerdKit -- the Awesome Project of the Month

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BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF AMERICA & NERDKITS

Every once in a while we get e-mails from NerdKits customers letting us 
know what they are doing with their kits (we love it! keep 'em coming). A 
few months ago we received an email from Andrew (user awds) about the work 
he has been doing with Roberto, the up-and-coming nerd he was matched up 
with through Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.

Andrew started working with Roberto assembling his a NerdKit during his 45 
minute after school study hall, and over a period of a few weeks Roberto 
assembled the NerdKit and was able to see the initial congratulations 
message. Roberto is in great hands, and we are glad to see a NerdKit being 
used to  teach the next generation how fun engineering can be.

Andrew sent us some pictures and videos of Roberto working on his NerdKit:
  http://awd-s.smugmug.com/gallery/8543196_RxRgy#562584984_XNGZh
Great job Roberto -- keep up the awesome work!

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IEEE "ENGINEERING YOUR WORLD" COMPETITION FINALIST

NerdKits has been selected as one of the finalists in the IEEE Engineering 
Your World competition, and we need your help to win!

The IEEE is the leading professional society for electrical engineering. As 
part of its 125th Anniversary, the IEEE is holding a video competition 
demonstrating how people can use engineering to make their lives better.

As we are in the business of getting people excited about engineering, and 
showing how it can be easy and fun to play with electronics, we put 
together a shorter version of our meat thermometer video and submitted it 
to the competition. We are one of 5 finalists in the competition and now we 
need your vote to put us over the edge!

To vote for our video you first need to create a web account with IEEE. 
This only takes a few minutes, and is completely free.  If you already have 
an IEEE account, you can skip to the next step.
1. Go to: http://www.ieee.org/go/create_web_account
2. Click on "Create an IEEE account" and follow the instructions.
3. Their UI for this is kind of odd so be careful: your username needs to 
be ALL-CAPS and password needs to be at least 8 characters (if you don't 
meet their criteria the first time you have to start the form all over)

4. Once you have an account go here: 
http://www.ieee125.org/celebrate/engineering-your-world/index.html
5. Click on the Sign In link towards the top right corner. (If you click on 
the individual links you might end up on their forums somewhere)
6. Once you sign in with your new username and password it will take you 
back to the page where you can vote. Our video is Meat Thermometer, the 
second one from the top.

We would really appreciate your vote!

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TETRIS ON A NERDKIT - PROJECT OF THE MONTH

As increasingly interesting projects start popping up on our forums, we 
thought we would recognize one that caught our eye. User depg has put 
together a Tetris game using the same concept as the LED Array Tutorial:
  http://www.nerdkits.com/videos/ledarray2/
The details and video on his forum post:
  http://www.nerdkits.com/forum/thread/167/
pretty much speaks for itself; he also posted source code. Great job depg, 
keep the awesome projects coming!

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THANKS!

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and for being such great
customers.  Make sure you tell your friends and neighbors about NerdKits so
that we can keep the world's DIY spirit alive!

Best wishes,

Humberto & Mike
NerdKits, L.L.C.
http://www.nerdkits.com/

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