Supermechanical

Hey, we're back with a new sensor thing. kickstarter.com/projects/super…

Testing Pickup distance sensor carts — bouncing lasers off that far wall.

Assembled spectral sensor, plugged into a preproduction Pickup! Got color sensing working, though it's still uncalibrated.

Bringing up Pickup sensor cartridges... blog.supermechanical.com/2025/01/27/sen…

Pickup update in which we try to untangle tariffs, which are currently in a quantum state. Also, sensor cartridge boards. kickstarter.com/projects/super…

First samples of our sensor cartridge boards are done! And cases are being printed as I type.

It's neat that contract manufacturing lets you make products without a lot of experience. But making innovative products requires that first-hand experience. Here's how hard it is. blog.supermechanical.com/2024/12/23/you…

It's hard to make hardware in America when you're small. How we're making the supply chain for our environmental monitor: blog.supermechanical.com/2024/12/23/the…

When you're making a hardware product, you're really making two products. Been wanting to write about the experience of building a supply chain for a while. blog.supermechanical.com/2024/12/23/the…

Pickup update #11 is a little dull unless you're into the nitty gritty of hardware production. Always fun ("fun"?) to get your first batch of boards to start analyzing the failures! (3 out of 50, but easy fixes.) blog.supermechanical.com/2024/11/14/boa…

First batch of production boards for Pickup came in a few weeks ago, just in time for pumpkin season. And now they're working great with the alpha firmware. More details in a Kickstarter update this week.

Production circuitboards have arrived just in time for pumpkin spice season. Read this for a snapshot of the many balls you have to keep in the air (and the one I dropped) when developing a consumer electronics product. blog.supermechanical.com/2024/10/08/the…

The first production Pickup boards just arrived, and things are looking good. Writing a backer update now.

My friend Andrew is making a beautifully machined mechanical pencil that draws on his decade of writing instruments while somehow getting more minimalist. I took this photo to try to capture the subtle tri-lobe grip. Less than 24 hours to go: kickstarter.com/projects/andre…

Multi-channel graph showing three Pickups reporting light levels (got some noise in two of them caused by LEDs that are blinking for debugging purposes).

When you're making a thousand of something, you need a whole other device to automatically test your device. This board is descended from the same DNA as the Pickups it checks, like soldier and worker ants. blog.supermechanical.com/2024/08/25/tes…

Special delivery! Got samples of an unreleased sensor. 1% the size of comparable sensors, which makes it easy to fit into a cartridge for our pocket-sized environmental monitor.

That feeling when you finally hold the first physical instance of the thing you've been working on for a year. This is why hardware development is hard to quit! blog.supermechanical.com/2024/07/30/sol…

Making injection-molded parts is not as hard as you think, as long as you can swallow laying down a lot of money. I wrote about the grind as I finish up the molds for Pickup: blog.supermechanical.com/2024/07/01/a-l…

We got production candidate circuitboards for Pickup! Nearly there. blog.supermechanical.com/2024/05/14/mes…

Big pads, little component. That's why you prototype the process. (From the Pickup environmental data logger we're manufacturing.)