My DesignSpark 1st Birthday

As you can see I have now reached the grand old age of one on DesignSpark. So to celebrate I will be looking back over the last year of being online.

So my path to DesignSpark started back in October 2009 while at a RS Electronics New Product Show. This show is a closed event for RS suppliers like ebm-papst to turn up and show our new products to the RS sales staff. Its a lot like a normal electronics show - but the only visitors are RS. So while there I got talking about how engineers think and what they want from big electronics suppliers. I talked about the way we select components and about access to technical information as well as how we can’t always talk openly about designs because of IP restrictions. I found at the time the people at RS were very interested in what I was saying - little did I know that they were designing a new site in total secret.

So in April 2010 I was one of about 50 people asked to join the Beta site that is now DesignSpark. Over the next few days we found our way around and I posted my first blog. Then over time they opened up the community to 500 and then in July it was open to the public, the same day that DesignSparkPCB was lunched.

It was Lee Stacey who is the engineer under the bonnet of DesignSpark that introduced me to Twitter and encouraged myself and my manager and also DesignSpark blogger Peter to post more blogs and guide us with how to write them. A year later and I would say they we have now learned to walk on our own and starting to understand stuff like SEO. Of the blogs we have written from DesignSpark, mine on Twitter and Peters blog about the engineers that saved the Chilean miners which went viral, have been our favorites.

Another aspect of my online life has been writing reviews. Over the last year I have had some really good and really bad kit to review. I am always honest and frank with the kit and like to look at from a hobbyist point of view as well as a fully time electronics engineer. Just because you get given kit does not mean you have to be nice about it - people will not respect you if you are. You should also write more than a paragraph about a product - or that's just cheating other with information.

Using twitter as I have said before in other blogs has opened up a portal to lots of other engineers and web sites like EEVBlog Forum which I visit one per day. I now blog full time on EngineeringBlogs as well as setting up my own blog site.

Other than DesignSpark I think the biggest event to be small part of is the 555 contest which is coming to a close. Not only did I watch Jeri come up with the idea online but my own firm, ebm-papst UK Ltd and DesignSpark are proud sponsors of the contest both putting up a fab fluke meter as a prizes.

The last year has seen a lot of changes and I’m certain the next year will be no different. Now at the age of one I’ve found my feet, next year I'll be running!