Maker Pro

Maker Pros are the innovators that are designing tomorrow’s products and businesses. Stay tuned for the latest news on manufacturing, startups, and industry trends.

OpenPCR in the Wild!

It’s a delight to see OpenPCR already on so many desktops! Josh and I spent the past year staring at mostly-disassembled prototypes, with wires all over the place. It makes it all worthwhile to see everyone assembling their kits, posting pictures of them, and having a blast doing so.

GoPayment is GO for Maker Faire Detroit!

GoPayment is GO for Maker Faire Detroit!

The folks over at Intuit are offering this deal to makers and crafters exhibiting at Maker Faire Detroit. If you accept credit card transactions on Visa, MasterCard, and Discover cards, on July 30th and 31st, using your mobile phone or tablet and Intuit GoPayment, it’s free during the Faire. No transaction fees! They’ll even give you a GoPayment card swiper.

Creating a Hackable Flashlight

Creating a Hackable Flashlight

When I told people at the Bay Area Maker Faire that I was going to make an open source, programmable flashlight, some called me crazy. Now, seven weeks later, my project HexBright FLEX, is one of the top ten most-funded Kickstarter projects to date, raising over $170,000, with over 2000 backers who think I’m not so crazy, including MythBuster legend Grant Imahara.

Why Every Maker Should Learn Chinese

Why Every Maker Should Learn Chinese

If you’re a maker you might want to consider learning a new language! In this week’s article I’ll talk about why I think it’s a good idea for any maker to consider picking up some new language skills and specifically what I’m doing. A lot of my articles tend to be about the future (I can’t wait to look back on these 5 years from now). So, yes, I think a lot of us are going to find speaking, reading, and writing the language of the soon-to-be biggest economy in the world and, who makes almost everything, is a good idea. It’s something to consider learning, starting now, particularly for makers, especially the ones who run maker businesses.