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With the exciting release of the Arduino 1.0 software, some minor changes happened that required updates to sketches and libraries, including the code that comes with the Video Game Shield. Well, we just finished doing the minor updates required to make all the Video Game Shield code compatible with both Arduino 1.0 and the pre-1.0 Arduino software.

You can get the latest code from the Video Game Shield download page or from the Wayne and Layne GitHub repository.

While you could update the package every time there’s a new version, keep in mind that this is the “testing” branch of kicad, meaning that things might break horribly from day to day (but should be fixed within a day or two). However, it’s pretty stable overall, and it’s really nice to have the newest features and stay on the bleeding-edge of Kicad development!

They’ve started making custom end plates to go with various shields, and we’re delighted that they chose our Video Game Shield as one of the first shield faceplates. They’re very reasonably priced, so you should go check them out!

We’ll have cheap and easy kits for sale from Make, as well as more advanced kits for sale from Wayne and Layne, including our Tactile Metronome and Blinky Grid and Blinky POV kits. If you’re in the Western Pennsylvania area, we hope to see you there!

In conjunction with another friend of ours, John Baichtal, we turned our penchant for bluetooth keyboards into a how-to article in Make Magazine volume 28, along with producing an actual product! We’re proud to announce the release of the Bluetooth Arcade Controller, and add-on shield for the Arduino Mega, that lets you turn some arcade joysticks and buttons into a bluetooth keyboard.

We built a small demonstration unit with one joystick and six buttons for the 2011 World Maker Faire in New York City back in September. We connected it to a tablet computer and used the bluetooth keyboard to play games.

The Bluetooth Arcade Controller can support over 52 buttons, joysticks, switches, etc. A system-level diagram on how to hook things up is shown below. More details are available from the Bluetooth Arcade Controller page.

The Bluetooth Arcade Controller is available for purchase exclusively through the Maker Shed Store.

Hello,

I bought one of your blinky grid kits at Maker Faire a few weeks ago
and just built it yesterday. Just wanted to let you know I had a blast
doing it. I was kinda scared because I’d never done any soldering but,
after a few minutes I picked it up and was able to finish the kit in
about two hours.

Thanks for the good time,
Sonny

Awesome! That’s what we’re hearing from folks. The Blinky Grid looks pretty daunting, but for folks who haven’t soldered before, it usually takes them about two hours to complete the Blinky Grid kit.

It looks like this when assembled:

Blinky Grid has 56 LEDs, and is totally awesome. It looks like this when assembled:

Here’s a nifty demo video of Blinky Grid, showing the programming features near the end:

These kits were developed in a bit of a new way for us. We did an online form to apply for the beta test, and we learned a lot in that process. Beta test applicants, we will be sending you one-and-only-one email to you this week with a coupon code for these kits as a way to say thanks. After the beta test, they were soft-launched at the 2011 Bay Area Maker Faire. Hopefully, getting more feedback throughout the development process helped make a better kit.

They’re available now in our store and in the Maker Shed: Blinky Grid and Blinky POV.