This looks good but I am divided. On the one hand, being a sw person and a solder virgin, I was recently flummoxed when I saw that the USB shield I ordered needed to be, gasp, soldered (and it's really tiny connections, too)!
On the other hand, one can argue that a large part of learning is the getting flummoxed and learning to conquer it, so packaging everything up may kill the hands on aspect .
I'm in the same boat as you, but I just dove in head first last week. My current project requires that I know whether a TV is powered or not. Even after using all the Google-fu I know, I wasn't able to find an off-the-shelf current sensor that was network or usb accessible. I decided to build my own. It's Arduino based with a current sensor on a separate breakout board. I was soldering connectors on to the breakout board and accidentally left the heat on way too long. Two tiny surface mount resistors fell off. It took 20 minutes, but I managed to solder both of them back on. The board even worked afterwards!
That was last weekend. This weekend I now have 2 of these things built and my soldering skills have improved immensely.
As a beginner's project I plan to take my FON access port apart (a serial connection is required to install a better/different firmware).
So - not for me. Would take a lot of fun out of the learning experience, I guess.
But hell, this _is_ a cool thing for education/schools/introduction courses.
That looks like a really neat project, but asking $160 as a starting price for the kit is a bit too steep. Offer a cheaper alternative at less than $50 and lots more people will get involved, learn and fund your project. The current pricing structure just encourages people to buy stickers, not make stuff.
You can get started with Arduino for less than $40 and even get a good kit for less than $70, so why does this cost so much more?
I think the easier software interface should really be the focus of this. Why don't you make it work with any Arduino?
We've also been thinking about integration of wireless. It quickly makes things more complex and expensive (unfortunate for beginners and education/schools), but enables lots of cool projects (especially vehicles and remote automation). In the meantime, you should be able to use a wireless USB cable setup if you want to remotely program/play with it:
http://www.amazon.com/Cables-Go-29570-TruLink-Wireless/dp/B0...
They need better examples in the video. There's nothing that wowed me. All I saw is some lame and boring interactive "art". At the same time I understand that something really cool can be done. So show us something truly cool.
On the other hand, one can argue that a large part of learning is the getting flummoxed and learning to conquer it, so packaging everything up may kill the hands on aspect .