Generating Gerber files with KiCad
Update: The information here is kind of outdated. You probably want to read up on the current settings for generating gerber files over here.
We recently hosted a PCB Design with KiCad class at HackPittsburgh. As you may know, we are really big fans of the free and open source EDA tool called KiCad, and have had great success using it for Wayne and Layne projects.
The final part of the PCB design process is to export your design in the proper format for manufacturing, specifically to generate the “gerber” files and the drill file that you send off to be manufactured. KiCad’s pcbnew software has a lot of options to allow for precise control of your exported file settings, but we wanted to post the detailed settings that we use here at Wayne and Layne, and have worked well for us in all our projects and kits.
Plot settings: (click to enlarge)
Drill file settings: (click to enlarge)
Now with infinitely more badges than before!
You may have noticed an uptick in “badges” around the Internet. These can take the form of “achievements”, traditional Scout-style merit badges, or any number of really cool things we’ve never seen yet.
Adafruit is doing a lot of fun things with their leaderboard, and after looking at the technology available, Wayne and Layne is ready to join the fray. We’re not really sure what we’re going to do with it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we offer coupon codes or highlight folks who earn badges from us. We know we’re going to award badges, for example, to people who take classes by us, or when people assemble our kits, or do awesome stuff with them that we hadn’t thought of when we were creating them. We’re going to be issuing them to people who come up to us at Maker Faire and say hi, although we may have to cut that off if it ends up being too crazy!
Mozilla has been working on a badge solution for a while. They call their solution OpenBadges, and it’s an open infrastructure for issuing, storing, and displaying badges.
We’ve started to issue some OpenBadges over the last month. If you put together an Blinky SMT before today, you’re an SMT Blinky beta tester, and as such, have earned an Blinky SMT Beta Tester badge. Contact us and we’ll issue you a badge!
Right now, we’re not going to be displaying awarded badges, like Adafruit’s leaderboard. We’re going to be sending issued badges to Mozilla’s Badge Backpack, where you can redeem badges, and set up privacy controls to control who can view each badge.
We’re interested in this badge stuff, and we’re going to put some work into it and have some fun with it, and we’ll see what sticks. Make sure to let us know what you think, either in the comments here, the forum, or through the Contact Us page.
Mozilla’s Open Badge project (wiki) says the following:
Learning today happens everywhere
But it’s often difficult to get recognition for skills and achievements gained outside of school. Mozilla’s Open Badges project is working to solve that problem, making it easy to issue, earn and display badges across the web. The result: recognizing 21st century skills, unlocking career and educational opportunities, and helping learners everywhere level up in their life and work.Get recognition for new skills and achievements

The web and other new learning spaces provide exciting ways to gain skills and experience — from online courses, learning networks and mentorship to peer learning, volunteering and after-school programs. Badges provide a way for learners to get recognition for these skills, and display them to potential employers, schools, colleagues and their community.Through a simple framework that’s open to all

Using Mozilla’s Open Badges infrastructure, any organization or community can issue badges backed by their own seal of approval. Learners can then collect badges from different sources and display them across the web — on their resume, web site, social networking profiles, job sites or just about anywhere. Unlocking new career and learning opportunities. 
By displaying skills and achievements that traditional degrees and transcripts often leave out, badges can lead to jobs, community recognition, and new learning opportunities.
We were both interviewed at EEWeb a bit ago, and it hit their website today. Go check it out!
EEWeb Featured Engineer interview with Matthew Beckler and Adam Wolf of Wayne and Layne
One of our customers in Croatia recently ordered a Tap-Tempo Metronome kit. He had some very nice things to say about it:
I’ve just assembled it. I didn’t have any problem, It works great. Instructions are very easy, and PCB itself is very instructive. I also find this build quite beautiful, and very under-appreciated.
The Tap-Tempo Metronome kit is available in the Wayne and Layne Store and also the Maker Shed store for $24.95.
Wayne and Layne supports an open internet.
We do not support SOPA and PIPA.
If you’re in the United States, please contact your elected representatives and let them know your opinion on SOPA and PIPA.
You can learn more, and if you’re not from the United States, you can sign a petition to the US State Department, at http://americancensorship.org/.
Video Game Shield with Arduino 1.0
With the exciting release of the Arduino 1.0 software, some minor changes happened that required updates to sketches and libraries, including the code that comes with the Video Game Shield. Well, we just finished doing the minor updates required to make all the Video Game Shield code compatible with both Arduino 1.0 and the pre-1.0 Arduino software.
You can get the latest code from the Video Game Shield download page or from the Wayne and Layne GitHub repository.
We just finished working on a cool new animated guide to programming your Blinky Grid or Blinky POV kit using our programming website. Take a look and let us know what you think! Click through for the full-size, animated version.
Kicad testing PPA packages for Ubuntu
Wayne and Layne are big fans of open source, especially our favorite PCB design tool Kicad. We’ve written instructions in the past about how to compile the most recent testing version of Kicad on Ubuntu, but if you’re looking to run the latest and greatest version of Kicad on your Ubuntu computer (but don’t want to mess about with compiling it yourself) then look no further, we’ve set up a PPA for Ubuntu with the newest Kicad automatically compiled each night.
While you could update the package every time there’s a new version, keep in mind that this is the “testing” branch of kicad, meaning that things might break horribly from day to day (but should be fixed within a day or two). However, it’s pretty stable overall, and it’s really nice to have the newest features and stay on the bleeding-edge of Kicad development!
Our friends over at Solarbotics have just finished rolling out their totally awesome Solarbotics Arduino Freeduino Enclosure (SAFE), which is a nifty laser-cut enclosure for an arduino.
They’ve started making custom end plates to go with various shields, and we’re delighted that they chose our Video Game Shield as one of the first shield faceplates. They’re very reasonably priced, so you should go check them out!
Video Game Shield faceplates for the Solarbotics Arduino Freeduino Enclosure (SAFE).
The Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire is fast approaching, and we’re proud to announce that Wayne and Layne will be helping to run the Learn to Solder workshop! Layne, who lives in Pittsburgh, is heading-up the LtS station, with the gracious support of HackPittsburgh.
We’ll have cheap and easy kits for sale from Make, as well as more advanced kits for sale from Wayne and Layne, including our Tactile Metronome and Blinky Grid and Blinky POV kits. If you’re in the Western Pennsylvania area, we hope to see you there!