What Drives Us:
We love cool ideas. That’s where it all really started. We're a really small group of people passionate about all the amazing things you can do with hobby electronics. As kids, we were the first to take apart the electronic toys we and our loved ones received as birthday presents (how does electronic
Battleship make all those cool sounds? Is there any way I can hack my sister's Speak & Spell?), and with any luck, we also possessed the skill to put them back together again. We greeted the annual arrival of the new and very heavy catalog at our local Radio Shack as a major event. We spent hours poring through Heathkit catalogs and wished our allowances were large enough to let us place an order. We had train layouts in our basements, and enormous bins full of LEGO® bricks. We built large and very ominous blinking consoles out of endless strands of Christmas lights.
You get the picture. Looking back, it's hard to believe all of this happened in a world without smartphones, e-mail, or the Internet, but we have fond memories of nights spent huddled over a smoldering soldering iron trying to bring the latest creation to life.
What's changed since those days? We're older. We have families and jobs. And we can instantly order any electronic or hobby part and have it on our doorstep tomorrow morning. We collaborate with people halfway around the globe who share our passions, interests, and quirky hobbies. And our hobbies have evolved to levels even we could not have imagined. It has never been easier to design, build, and share any creation we can dream up.
The good news: we never stopped imagining. We never stopped thinking "What if?" And we never stopped building, creating, and sharing. Yet as we looked at the masterful creations around us-- all the exquisitely detailed model railroad layouts, the stunning dollhouses, and the mind-blowing LEGO® creations-- two things seemed to be missing: robust lighting and automation! Many enthusiasts have built their own systems of lighting or automation, but many of these were the result of years of electronics experience. At fan conferences, we spoke with people who had built absolutely mind-blowing creations, but who weren’t electronics gurus. They told us they’d like to have amazing lighting in their creations, but they didn’t have the time or the interest to learn how to build it from scratch.
We thought fans of all ages and technical inclinations deserved a simple, flexible, extensible system that could bring any creation to life in entirely new ways. The kind of product that would make observers of all ages look at your creation and say, "Wow. Now that's cool!"
That's what we're about, really. We're still huddled over those soldering irons, though these days we spend as much time writing code for microprocessors as we do splicing cable. And we're very excited to share all we've dreamed about with you.
Battleship make all those cool sounds? Is there any way I can hack my sister's Speak & Spell?), and with any luck, we also possessed the skill to put them back together again. We greeted the annual arrival of the new and very heavy catalog at our local Radio Shack as a major event. We spent hours poring through Heathkit catalogs and wished our allowances were large enough to let us place an order. We had train layouts in our basements, and enormous bins full of LEGO® bricks. We built large and very ominous blinking consoles out of endless strands of Christmas lights.
You get the picture. Looking back, it's hard to believe all of this happened in a world without smartphones, e-mail, or the Internet, but we have fond memories of nights spent huddled over a smoldering soldering iron trying to bring the latest creation to life.
What's changed since those days? We're older. We have families and jobs. And we can instantly order any electronic or hobby part and have it on our doorstep tomorrow morning. We collaborate with people halfway around the globe who share our passions, interests, and quirky hobbies. And our hobbies have evolved to levels even we could not have imagined. It has never been easier to design, build, and share any creation we can dream up.
The good news: we never stopped imagining. We never stopped thinking "What if?" And we never stopped building, creating, and sharing. Yet as we looked at the masterful creations around us-- all the exquisitely detailed model railroad layouts, the stunning dollhouses, and the mind-blowing LEGO® creations-- two things seemed to be missing: robust lighting and automation! Many enthusiasts have built their own systems of lighting or automation, but many of these were the result of years of electronics experience. At fan conferences, we spoke with people who had built absolutely mind-blowing creations, but who weren’t electronics gurus. They told us they’d like to have amazing lighting in their creations, but they didn’t have the time or the interest to learn how to build it from scratch.
We thought fans of all ages and technical inclinations deserved a simple, flexible, extensible system that could bring any creation to life in entirely new ways. The kind of product that would make observers of all ages look at your creation and say, "Wow. Now that's cool!"
That's what we're about, really. We're still huddled over those soldering irons, though these days we spend as much time writing code for microprocessors as we do splicing cable. And we're very excited to share all we've dreamed about with you.
