This newsletter was released on January 11th, 2010.

Hi! This is the ninth edition of the NerdKits Newsletter which we publish
~monthly to keep you and the world up to date with everything going on at
NerdKits.

In this issue:
1. Welcome to New NerdKits Community Members
2. New Customer Projects: Hard Drive Clock and Intervalometer
3. New Video Tutorial: Multi-Panel LED Array with SPI
4. Old Video Tutorial: Valentine's Day LED Heart
5. 2009 NerdKits Year in Review

============================

WELCOME TO NEW NERDKITS COMMUNITY MEMBERS

We shipped a lot of kits in December to new customers, and that means
hundreds of new users are now getting set up and first signing on to our
forums.  Welcome to the NerdKits community, and don't be afraid to jump in
and ask questions or contribute!

Take a minute to introduce yourself by adding to the "About the Members"
forum post:
  http://www.nerdkits.com/forum/thread/48/

Log in to our IRC channel to chat with other customers: see details at
  http://www.nerdkits.com/accounts/members/

And as you continue your journey into electronics and programming, please
keep us in the loop by posting photos, videos, and information to the
forums!

============================

NEW CUSTOMER PROJECTS: HARD DRIVE CLOCK AND INTERVALOMETER

We're featuring two awesome customer projects this month.

First, "pej" writes in with a NerdKits Hard Drive Clock, using an old hard
drive, a few LEDs, and a microcontroller to create a digital "analog" clock! 
This project shows an impressive combination of electronics, programming,
and mechanical elements, and it's a great finished project.  See the forum
post:
  http://www.nerdkits.com/forum/thread/378/
and his write-up and video on his website:
  http://www.lonelydonkey.com/hdClock.html

FWSquatch has been working on a NerdKits Intervalometer, which commands his
Nikon camera to take photos at predefined intervals to make long time-lapse
videos.  For anyone with an interest in photography, or simply an
appreciation for watching ice cubes melt in under 30 seconds, see the forum
post:
  http://www.nerdkits.com/forum/thread/338/
and his write-up and videos on his website:
  http://thedavisblog.com/blog/?p=708

Show us what you've been up to: as you build projects with your
microcontroller skills, please post them to the NerdKits forum so others can
be inspired by your work, and so we can feature them here in our newsletter.

============================

NEW VIDEO TUTORIAL: MULTI-PANEL LED ARRAY WITH SPI

There was a lot of discussion on the forums about how to make a bigger LED
display, and simultaneously we got some questions about how to communicate
between chips using external buses like SPI or I2C, so we decided to combine
these two concepts into one new video tutorial. 

This one uses 5 microcontrollers to control a 5x80 pixel LED display, where
each microcontroller is doing a part of the work:
  http://www.nerdkits.com/videos/multipanel_spi_ledarray/

If you are interested in communicating between microcontrollers, or from an
MCU to some other IC, take a look at this tutorial to help get you started! 

The finished display is also now a permanent fixture in the NerdKits labs.
:-)

============================

OLD VIDEO TUTORIAL: VALENTINE'S DAY LED HEART

Last year, we presented our "DIY LED Heart for Valentine's Day" video
tutorial, which uses a microcontroller to generate pseudo-random numbers to
give the appearance of gently "twinkling" LEDs in the shape of a heart. 

This is one of our most popular video tutorials to date, and with about a
month to go until Valentine's Day 2010, we wanted to remind you of it early
so you could build it for your own Valentine!

See the video here:
  http://www.nerdkits.com/videos/ledheart/

"Think about it... how many girls out there can say that their Valentine's
card runs at 14 MHz?"

As always, you can pick up an extra microcontroller or other parts from our
store so you can dedicate them to this project.

============================

2009 NERDKITS YEAR IN REVIEW

Last year we published ~10 new video tutorials -- did you miss any?
  http://www.nerdkits.com/videos/

We launched our forums in April:
  http://www.nerdkits.com/forum/

We started this newsletter in May:
  http://www.nerdkits.com/forum/nerdkits_newsletter_archives/

We launched our first expansion kit in November:
  http://www.nerdkits.com/store/NKLEDARRAY001/

We brought a bigger LCD and some other changes to our USB NerdKit:
  http://www.nerdkits.com/kits/

But most importantly, we helped thousands of new customers get their first
start with electronics and programming.  We get great satisfaction from
watching that "Aha!" moment, hearing your feedback, and seeing a
knowledgeable and approachable learning community develop on our forums. 
Thanks for continuing to inspire us to teach!

============================

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
we can keep the world's DIY spirit alive (now with NerdKits in 48
countries)!

Best wishes,

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

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============================
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