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Will Fusion Garage stick to open sourcing the CrunchPad?

Will Fusion Garage's Chandrasekar "Chandra" Rathakrishnan stick to open sourcing the CrunchPad? Maybe someone can ask at the video call on Monday... Chandra if you're Google alerting this, there's an overview below, so far no one at TechCrunch have replied to our emails... If it's not going to be open source as promised, that's fine - just say it.

SF Biz times... The man whom TechCrunch blog network founder and editor Michael Arrington blamed for killing his CrunchPad hardware project has scheduled a video call with reporters and industry analysts for Monday, according to a Silicon Valley public relations firm. Chandrasekar "Chandra" Rathakrishnan, founder and CEO of Fusion Garage, will speak to reporters and demonstrate "the device" both in a video call and in private briefings scheduled for later Monday at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco, said Megan Alpers of San Jose-based McGrath/Power Public Relations.

Previously:

The CrunchPad, named Popular Mechanic's 10 most brilliant products of the year (although it never came out) is not happening. Mike writes -

The entire project self destructed over nothing more than greed, jealousy and miscommunication... I'm enraged, embarrassed, and just...sad.

I bet there's more to this story... Here's what Ladyada who makes hardware thinks...

Although it may seem like an irrelevant point, I'm guessing the price was a big contributor to the project death. Why? because when you say up front (with no experience in hardware/manufacturing design) that you're going to sell it for $x the scramble then becomes "how can each party squeeze margin out?" When theres very little margin, parties are more willing to bluff knowing that they can walk away and there was almost no $ on the table. Hardware has this problem, and I've seen it so many times, that the founder prices the hardware at only a bit (say ~30%) above the parts cost, not realizing the tons of NRE expenses, ballooning BOM, contractor costs, and the hundreds of other ways the price can easily double. Then they're stuck: the investors/contract manufacturer/designer/customer hates them. That leads to abandonment. Please please please, if you decide to do any kind of hardware, add an extra 40% margin on top of whatever you pick. If you don't need it, you can always cut the price later! :)

When there was a lot of buzz about the CrunchPad many curious gadget fans asked me about their "open source" and "open source hardware" tablet. I wasn't sure if it was going to happen, it's expensive, margins are tough, doing hardware is hard. A lot of web commenters said "exactly, this is so easy now" just get some screens, load up linux and have it boot in to a browser, it's a weekend project, DONE!". For folks who do hardware there's more to it than that beyond demo-ware.

I also was worried about the marketing of the CrunchPad said "open source" just to get good will and support, this happens a lot.

Here's what was said...

In the founding July 21, 2008 manifesto "We Want A Dead Simple Web Tablet For $200. Help Us Build It. Michael Arrington wrote: "So let's design it, build a few and then open source the specs so anyone can create them." "If everything works well, we'd then open source the design and software and let anyone build one that wants to."

On the "The End Of The CrunchPad" post Mike writes...

It was so close I could taste it. Two weeks ago we were ready to publicly launch the CrunchPad. The device was stable enough for a demo. It went hours without crashing. We could even let people play with the device themselves - the user interface was intuitive enough that people "got it" without any instructions. And the look of pure joy on the handful of outsiders who had used it made the nearly 1.5 year effort completely worth it.

This sounds like it's in a good spot to open up the designs, right? So as a follow up I've asked if they're going to stick to what they said. I'm hoping they publish something.

I posted my question on TechCrunch...

mike - phil from MAKE magazine here. you said many times that the project was an open source project (the hardware and the software) - where are the files, the schematics, the source code, the PCB files, etc? is it correct to assume that "fusion garage" is not going to release any source or continue this project as an open source (software/hardware project)? if that's the case it seems like "open source" was used again just to get good will and marketing and not really put any value in.

I also sent TechCrunch an email directly (12/1/2009 - no reply yet).

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How-To: Chemistry-themed Xmas ornaments

Bethany Halford's column in this week's Chemical & Engineering News drew my attention to BEYONDbones, an official blog from the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences, and particularly to a couple of chemistry-related holiday projects. This page teaches how to make a crystalline ornament from pipe cleaners and saturated borax, and this one, how to use washable markers and a coffee filter to make tie-dye-like paper ornaments based on the principle of paper chromatography.

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CupCake CNC build, part 5: Pulley & enclosure finishing

It's been a while since my last build journal, mostly because the finish takes a few days to apply, and yet another few days to fully cure. I'm just happy it's now done! I want to start building... and printing!

First up, assembling the pulleys. If you purchased a kit, it includes a set of 3D-printed pulleys. This makes the pulleys really easy to assemble. However, there are a few tips and tricks that I'll cover.

First, make sure there are no extra bits of plastic in the pulley opening. If there are, carefully scrape them off with a hobby knife. Next, use one of the screws from the hardware burrito, along with a nut, to help push the bearing into the pulley. Screw the nut onto the bolt about 1/4" and then press the bolt head firmly until the bearing is completely seated. It's a snug fit, but you should be able to press it in fairly easily.

That's it! All the pulleys are assembled. If you are making your own pulleys from laser cut parts, check out this guide. Now it's time to apply a finish to your enclosure.

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Re-purposing an old digital photo frame as a clock

Got an old digital photo frame that you don't use any more? I did too, so instead of throwing it away, I decided to turn it into a written word clock. The basic idea is to use a computer program to generate a picture for each minute in a 12 hour clock cycle (720 in total), and then set the photo frame to advance pictures every minute. My cheapo frame didn't have an option to set the delay time between photos, so I added a little microcontroller circuit to press the 'forward' button every minute.

I chose to spell out the time in words, however this design would also be great for making a clock that integrates your favorite photos, shows really slow animations, or changes color during the day. It could also make a nice gift for that special someone! Schematic, source code, and directions are all available on the project page.

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