So last week if you have been following me on Twitter you will have seen I attended the National Electronics Week (aka NEW). So what did I see and who did I meet? Was it worth the 3 hour drive and 6am start? Well lets find out.
So standing outside the doors at 8:55am in the line waiting to get in I get my program guide and Yay! RS components are allowing Free WiFi so I’m up and away and ready to tweet. So once in my first stop is the RS stand to meet the DesignSpark team headed up by David Tarrant. They are a very friendly bunch and I got to look at the eTech magazine on an iPad (unfortunately I did not get to run off with it). I also got to play on the Wii game they had on the stand for a chance to win a SatNav. However Vicky who is also part of the DesignSpark team put me off by keep telling me how good she was and I only scored 26 points. Also on the stand was Pat who was giving a run down on the new DesignSparkPCB v2 software and who it all works and showing off the 3D stuff. I also got to meet some new faces from RS Components and learned a little more about what they do and stuff.
I then pottered off for a walk round to look at the other stands. There were lots of surface mount machine on display. All fun to watch but not what an electronics person like me wants to see - I want to see bits! So maybe this show was a little production based and not so down and dirty electronics?
I spent some time on the Wurth stand looking at the new connector range they have and am now considering them for a new project. I also bumped into old friends on the ART stand. These guys teach us heavy handed engineers how to do surface mount soldering by hand. Now training people across the UK, Europe and even the world - yes even in the USA! If you need to get pro soldering skills then these guys are very good!
I also spent some time on the Farnell element14 stand talking to Ally who is a great guy and looks after some of the community side of element14. I’d talked to him on twitter and email and it was nice at last to meet in person. This is one of the great things about these shows. I can meet lots of people in one day all in one place without driving round the whole UK - Its all about networking people!
The other great stand was ARM. I was surprised there was less hardware and more play stuff. I would have liked to find out more about ARM cores but the fun stuff was very cool!
First was the Lego Rubik Cube solver. I’ve got some links here you can watch. However seeing it in person is very impressive. Not just the software but the building of the Lego if amazing also. I got to talk to the engineer who designed all this stuff and it was really interesting hearing his story. So much so that I’ll do another blog just on his amazing Rubik solvers!
Latest in Solvers - ARM powered
On the other side of the stand was the ARM robot line follower contest. You write code and see if you can better the lap time. I was not silly enough to embarrass myself in front of people, especially when the best lap time was some 4 seconds. These little robots really fly and use a standard off the shelf robot base, and special interface board which I'm told will be available very soon and a standard mbed on the top. I kept dropping hints that I would like to test and review one but think I should have just nicked one. Anyway ARM please, will make a nice blog!?
mbed racing website
In all the show was quite good for me in that I meet lots of people and it doubled up as a meeting place for me. I would have liked to see more dev kits and new devices on show. Chips and Micros, Switches and more displays too. However I think it was good and would certainly go again next year!
