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Super Glue Gun & Mini Pinball Kit:   Which One Gets Axed? -- Episode 333

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element14's The Ben Heck Show

Join the Ben Heck team every week for amazing hacks! Watch them build and mod community-inspired projects using electronics!

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Super Glue Gun
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Now that the Super Glue Gun is finished, the Mini Pinball is near completion, and they’ve got a Pi Portable in hand, James Ray returns to the show to talk about product viability. James Ray was on a few months ago to talk about the Hex Board Game.  He works with Avid, a company that is part of Avnet, the parent company of element14, on bringing products to market and evaluating them on their manufacturability.  In today’s episode, they’ll connect over skype to talk about the Super Glue Gun, the Mini Pinball, and the Pi Portable. 

 

 

The conversation with James Ray begins with a Pi Portable analysis.  The Pi Portable is a Raspbery Pi, a screen, and a keyboard that is all driven by the GPIO. To do this there was a lot of hand wiring that was done. The team is thinking that if the all the hand wiring done.  If this could be done as a PCB, you could simply plug it into an existing Pi. James suggests the compute module as an option.  The drawback would be that they would need to add a SODIMM slot and that requires too much space. The other option would be to do a custom Pi. You would basically take all the Pi internals and do a single PCB that would include all your requirements.  James goes over specifics on what Avid can offer them if they go that route. Next they move onto an analysis of the Super Glue Gun and Mini Pinball.  They analyze both builds and decide which one to keep and which one to lose.

What do you think about James Ray's Analysis?

Agree or Disagree? 

If you have any helpful suggestions let us know in the comments below!

 

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  • I think the pi is a winner, just look at how popular pi videos and retro gaming videos are, I like the idea of an integrated board which doesn't sound outrageously expensive, but the pinball could be good too but certainly looks much more complex to get production ready.  It reminds me a bit of the picade by Pimaroni check that out as an example for your pinball, it started as a kickstarter and became a viable product.

     

    I think for the Pi to work you would need to offer it available as a complete kit or perhaps sell a base kit but with an optional case and screen that could be purchased separately.  One downside I can think of for kits is people breaking them making them and having potentially higher hassle as a result.

     

    Maybe take the Pi forward to get confidence then try the pinball.

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  • I think the pi is a winner, just look at how popular pi videos and retro gaming videos are, I like the idea of an integrated board which doesn't sound outrageously expensive, but the pinball could be good too but certainly looks much more complex to get production ready.  It reminds me a bit of the picade by Pimaroni check that out as an example for your pinball, it started as a kickstarter and became a viable product.

     

    I think for the Pi to work you would need to offer it available as a complete kit or perhaps sell a base kit but with an optional case and screen that could be purchased separately.  One downside I can think of for kits is people breaking them making them and having potentially higher hassle as a result.

     

    Maybe take the Pi forward to get confidence then try the pinball.

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