DIY Gadgets with BugLabsShow Video Details ↓ [music] … …Joanne: Peter Semmelhack you are the CEO of BugLabs. Now tell me, what is BugLabs? Peter Semmelhack: BugLabs has been called the Lego of gadgets. And what that means is that you can use these blocks basically to build any gadget you want as easy as Lego. This is a Linux computer. Joanne: OK. Peter Semmelhack: So the whole system is based on this sort of anchor piece which is called a BugBase. It's an ARM 11, it's got an LCD screen on the front with some buttons and into this you plug in the different modules. So if you want to build a motion detector camera, you take the motion detector module, you take the camera module, snap them together and you're done. So the point is that you can have these combinations and the operating system and the architecture doesn't get in your way. Joanne: Where would you like to see this go? Peter Semmelhack: My goal, my whole goal for the company was to really release, sort of, the imaginations of everybody to start building gadgets that other people have wanted but have never made it to market. If you look at how when the microcomputer came out in 1976 it was against the backdrop of the minicomputer and mainframe world. So if you were interested in programming back then, you had to either be a student or work someplace that you could have access to the big iron. The problem with that is that it was difficult to innovate. So if you had a great idea but didn't have access, then that's too bad. The microcomputer, the Apple II and the TRS-80 and so on came out, for not a lot of money you could have all the computing power you wanted right in your own home. The result was just this explosion of innovation. What we now have has been a result of that sort of taking the power out of the hands of the big guys and giving it to basically anybody. My feeling is that electronics, consumer electronics, are built along the same model. You can name probably 10 big vendors of consumer electronics today and they hold basically the keys to what we get, right? So if you want something and they don't make it, too bad. What we're trying to say is let's give the power to create devices and innovate to anybody who wants it. For people who are technically interested and early adopter literate in technology, they want to play and come up with new things just like the microcomputer folks of the '70s. The feeling is that we sort of unleash this explosion of innovation so that you can get devices that would have never come to market from Sony or Apple but you would want to buy at a price point that is reasonable. And that's kind of what we want to do. Joanne: And this is open source? Peter Semmelhack: It's all open source. All the designs are on the website, and not just the software, but all the hardware designs. And part of the value, we feel, is that open source ethic sort of invites the community to come and do their own thing. Joanne: So we're in the test kitchen right? Alicia Gibb: Yes. This place is open to the public. This particular bug has the Christmas tree application and this is written in Java software. And so what I thought we would do is build a hardware Christmas tree. It's kind of the opposite of this little guy right here. Joanne: OK. Alicia Gibb: What I've got in here already are resistors. Then, I'm going to take my soldering iron, which is ridiculously hot, and heat up both the lead from the resistor and the metal part on the circuit board. Um, so the next thing that we're going to do is put in the capacitors. Joanne: OK. [music] … Alicia Gibb: It's almost finished. Put the battery pack on. [music] There you go. Joanne: And this is the way it's going to work? Alicia Gibb: Yeah, it's modern... Joanne: This is for forward people, this is the way Christmas trees should look this year. [laughs] Alicia Gibb: Awesome. [music] |