Creating prototypes is the norm for embedded developers and the latest tools make it easier than ever (see点击新技术以生产几乎完美的原型）。零件和想法的一个地方是Sparkfun电子产品. It is a very interesting and fun place to work (seeFun at SparkFun) and definitely fun to visit.
SparkFun是开源硬件的主要供应商之一。是的，硬件。
Most are familiar with open source software but the same approach holds true for hardware. It is a challenge to stay ahead of the pack that can just copy what you sell but they are always turning out new technology.
Sparkfun还举办了许多比赛，例如焊接比赛（请参阅焊接和啤酒 - 什么混合！）。
我与SparkFun工程总监Peter Dokter进行了交谈，涉及SparkFun及其如何支持开发人员。
黄：谁是SparkFun的客户？Sparkfun仅适用于业余爱好者和原型？
Dokter:我们发现我们的客户来摇来摇去m all walks of life. Our original assumption was that we were catering to hobbyists and engineering students, but when we actually looked at the demographics we found an amazing cross-section of humanity. Men, women, old, young, republican, democrat, engineers with 40 years of experience to the rank noob with nothing more than a crazy idea. In short, anyone with a passing curiosity about electricity will find something cool going on at SparkFun.
黄：SparkFun提供什么样的硬件？
Dokter:简短的答案是“我们专门研究嵌入式电子组件”，但与我们的东西在我们体内产生的兴奋相比，这很干燥。我们有传感器，蜂窝模块，微控制器板的许多口味，蓝牙，GPS，Wi-Fi，LCD显示器，电子纹理组件，机器人和机器人零件，机器人零件，电动机，电动机，电动机，驱动器，按钮，工具，工具，书籍..。列表还在不断。但这也是我们认为对有抱负的电子设备修补师最有用和有趣的事情的清单，这些东西激发人们创建各种古怪的项目的各种事情。
而且，当然，我们努力使所有这些东西更容易让我们的客户使用，因此您不仅会发现裸露的组件，还可以找到突破板和示例代码，以帮助人们更快地取得成功。
黄：什么是开源硬件，它如何工作？
Dokter:The gist of open source anything is that instead of keeping secrets of how you did something, you let everybody know and let them see your work. In the case of us and open source hardware, we make everything that went into producing something available for everyone to see. All schematics, all board files, everything about a given product is there. This idea is, of course, counter to what most electronics companies believe what will make them money, relying instead on keeping their secrets to slow down their competition.
In practice, once we release a product as being open source, any other company or individual can take our work and create their own such product, even start up a company and sell them. But in doing so, they have to give us attribution for the original work. Many have done this now...
黄：开源硬件和软件对开发人员有什么好处？
Dokter:那为什么要做呢？好吧，如果您打算赚到数十亿美元，那可能不是分享所有内容的最佳计划（尽管似乎并没有伤害我们）。但是，作为开发人员，您可以对工作的关键反馈，甚至可以通过开源实践帮助使其更好。随着设计大大改进，可以大大减少开发时间。
In our case, we rely on being agile enough to improve designs over our competition. For example, company X takes something from us, tweaks the design a little bit to make it better and starts selling to the public while giving us attribution (they usually drop the price a buck or two under us, too). We then check out their work, and if it's a good improvement we roll it into our own design and maybe tweak it a bit more, now giving them attribution for what they've changed. Lastly, we might match their price, or set it lower. In the end what we have is a better product for customers at a lower price. It also forces us to compete in areas like customer service and tech support instead of taking competitors to court, something we're pretty sure our customers will appreciate more than watching us defend our turf.
黄：When a designer is turning a project into a product how can SparkFun help?
Dokter:A fair amount of our energy goes into educating people on how to use the tools of the trade. We've got a lot of tutorials on topics like PCB design, embedded programming, hardware hook up and usage, etc. Plus, our tech support team is on hand for specific questions about how to use all of our products. And if somehow we don't have the answer you're looking for, we can point you in the right direction for more information, be it on our user forum or even one of our competitors.
如果有人使用我们的一些硬件来构建产品，我们确实有可用于更高量的数量折扣 - 但是在某个时候，新创作者必须权衡从我们那里获得大量的成本，而不是自己制作所讨论的物品。
For the coolest new ideas we will actually collaborate with the idea originator to bring the product to market more quickly. One of our engineers takes on the project and works with the collaborator on hardware and firmware design, and the product gets listed on the SparkFun website when all parties are happy with the work. Collaborators get a percentage of retail sales and don't have to worry about all the difficulties of running a business.
黄：t是什么he popular platforms that SparkFun supports?
Dokter:首先是Arduino（图。1）. Those guys are awesome and do good work, especially with regard to their IDE. The Arduino platform has become the de facto standard for beginning embedded programming, and now they're expanding into ARM development with their new Due board. We also have the very popular IOIO platform for Android developers, Beagleboards and Beaglebones, Raspberry Pi's, and LeafLabs and mbed boards for more ARM development, just to name a few. Or if a simple microcontroller is too pedestrian for you, we also carry the Papilio One board that features a Xilinx Spartan 3E FPGA, and we're also working with Parallax to bring a couple of new Propeller boards to our customers. And all of these platforms are well suited to beginners in that they are very well documented and have large community-based support groups.
图1. Sparkfun的Arduino Mega 2560 R3颠簸基本Arduio平台的性能
While that might seem like a long list, it's worth knowing that there are plenty of platforms that we don't carry. The ones that don't make the cut are usually weeded out because they're expensive or there's a large cost up front for the associated IDE, or they're just not that easy to use. We try very hard to prune our list to the sorts of things that get our customers the most bang for the buck.
黄：SparkFun does a lot of special events as well. Can you tell us about some?
Dokter:Some events we host and some we attend. But what might be our signature hosted event is our AVC (Autonomous Vehicle Competition). This event is primarily robotics based, coupled with a simple navigation challenge: to get your bot to get itself around our building in the best time. To that end, we encourage participants to try to do the most with the least, which is to say that the cheaper and simpler solutions get more respect than the all-out entries (even if they don't win). The event has both ground and air classes, although last year we had to ban quad copters for safety reasons. But this year we're taking the event to a new venue and reinstating quads, plus we're looking to partner with some of our friends to expand the event and make it the best AVC yet.
Sparkfun AVC 2012（自动驾驶汽车比赛）
除此之外，我们在科罗拉多州博尔德的所在地举办了许多课程和研讨会，我们通常会参加圣马特奥，底特律和纽约市的制造商Faires，我们的教育部门经常参观该国传播好话。我们参加了许多教育会议，最著名的USASEF针对对科学，工程和数学感兴趣的学生。同样去年，我们参加了在犹他州洛根的犹他州大学举行的小型卫星会议。今年的新事物，我们正在谈论与一个小组人一起参加国家机器人技术挑战赛，也许是参加研讨会 - 但这仍在进行中。因此，我们使自己忙于社区参与。
黄：Check out some more of our SparkFun coverage on工程电视like the following video.
