Imagine being able to produce an exact replica of a household object, tool or gadget without having to leave your front door. 3D printing is about to make the quantum leap from design houses into people's homes as the first consumer printer, the Velleman K8200, hits high street stores.
From the quirky to the mundane and the downright provocative, designers have already begun exploring the rich horizons and potential perils of the technology, creating models of 18th-century watches, bath plugs and - in the US - a fully working hand gun.
It is not just electronics engineers who find that Rapid supply products at some of the best prices on the web. Our arts & crafts ranges are popular too. Teacher Lizzie Hayton uses screen printing to create her 'Delicious Designs' range of posters, cards and cases, and her screen printing workshop recommends Daler Rowney's System 3 Acrylic Paints. We are delighted to be able to supply this extensive range of acrylic paints in over 90 colours, from lemon yellow to cadmium red and raw sienna. Our 500ml pots are cheaper than 250ml pots elsewhere!
Pupils from Queen Mary's Grammar School in Walsall captured some stunning footage of their weather balloon flight 32km above the UK. You can clearly see the Isle of Wight and Bristol Channel, as well as the curvature of the Earth. 'Project Horizon' was sponsored by Rapid and saw the Sixth form students apply key STEM skills.
So many programming platforms and single board PCs have
appeared recently that for the beginner it can be hard to know which to choose.
The Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone and Arduino are the three most popular boards on
the market, supported by ever-expanding open-source communities and hardware
add-ons, but which one is right for you? Whether you want to use your board to prototype
or design a project, to play games or run programs, you will want to know how they
match up against each other.
Raspberry Pi Model B
Launched in February 2012, the Raspberry Pi was marketed as
an educational tool, designed to introduce children to coding and computer
circuits. But programmers, makers, hackers and hobbyists grasped the huge
potential of the Pi and snapped it up in their thousands. What distinguishes
the Pi from the Arduino is the fact that it
is a computer – plug it in to a monitor, use the two USB ports for a
keyboard and mouse and you can run desktop applications, connect to the web and
play HD video. It has a much more powerful processor than the Arduino and 512MB
of RAM. The Pi can be programmed via a number of languages such as Python and
Scratch.
Recommended for - Teaching, home computing, more advanced programming
BeagleBone Black
Like the Pi, the BeagleBone Black is a development board
with Ethernet connectivity, a fast (actually faster) processor and Linux
compatibility. There is only one USB port, however, which might be frustrating
to some users. But with its 92 digital input and output pins that can clip into
numerous shields and expansion boards, the BeagleBone Black provides excellent
interfacing potential – so it scores highly as a prototyping tool. If your next
hardware project calls for a device to perform sophisticated functions and
interact with its environment, as well as connect easily to a network, the
BeagleBone Black could be the one to back.
Recommended for - Prototyping, project design, home computing
Arduino Uno
Sitting comfortably in the palm of the hand, the Arduino Uno
(‘Blue’) is the smallest of the three boards. As a microcontroller – rather
than a computer – it does not require the power of the Pi or BeagleBone. If you
are an electronics novice the Arduino is your ideal launch pad. Once your
application has loaded you can just plug the Arduino in to your PC via USB; no
need to reboot, plug in a keyboard or choose an application to run. The bespoke
programming language is easy to follow and the Arduino can be connected up to
an almost infinite number of input, outputs and controllers such as
smartphones. Arduino can also work with a wider range of input voltages. It
does the job it has been programmed to do, and does it immediately.
Recommended for - Prototyping, project design, battery-powered applications
