First up – the i-racer. It’s small, zippy, and can be controlled from your iOS or Android smartphone. It comes almost ready to drive out of the box and has a rechargeable LiPo battery, on board bluetooth radio, motor drivers. It’s all centered around an ATMega48V. Snazzy huh?

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Credit to Mitch Altman, Andie Nordgren & Jeff Keyzer for creating this awesome comic!

^

The resistor colour code is something that a lot of people find themselves forgetting, but Electro-Droid also has sections for working out Ohm’s law calculations and Voltage divider values. Another hugely helpful section provides colourful pin-out diagrams of USB, serial and ethernet connectors as well as loads more. The app has a free version and a paid version (without adverts)

If you’re an iPhone user, there’s an similar app called Circuit Playground. Unfortunately, there’s no free version of this app – it costs $2.99.

While these apps are great for getting quick answers we do urge a little caution : You do really have to understand some of the theory behind electronics to avoid getting a catastrophically wrong answer and blowing up an expensive components. It’s also best if you have teeny-tiny fingers for entering details accurately on smart-phone touch screens! It’s also worth saying that there are loads more apps than just these two.

ALSO The positions outlined on this page are based at our London offices. Please do not apply if you do not have permission to work in the UK, or have a problem with working at an office location rather than home!

With all applications please note that the number one quality we’re looking for is *common sense*. If you can’t work out what our email address is, or where our office is, you may wish to consider applying to another employer!

In-House Software Developer – 3 Month Contract (initial)

We’re looking for a full time developer for an initial 3 month contract. You’ll be highly enthusiastic about coding, and about learning new technologies to make your coding better, faster and stronger.

You’ll be working on our tailor-made e-commerce / ERP system, helping it to interface with external APIs and improving performance and efficiency. In addition you’ll be adding new features, and possibly launching entirely new products / websites!

Your major proficiency will be in classical PHP5 with MySQL, but you’ll have an excellent working knowledge of Code Igniter, Zend Studio and other useful frameworks.

Html and CSS are not even worth mentioning as you’ll already have a full, detailed and longstanding relationship with both technologies. In addition, you’ll be blissfully happy using Javascript and AJAX technologies.

As a highly professional developer, you’ll be a constant and highly proficient user of Git, and will be comfortable deploying to multiple servers using Capistrano. Moving around our Linux based servers will not be a daunting issue for you.

Oh – and to top it off, if you’re interested in Ruby on Rails development, that would be great!

Salary : In region of £50k D.O.E.

Please apply via email, enclosing your CV and a cover letter.

Electronics Buyer – Part Time

Do you understand what FOB, T/T and MoQ mean? We’re looking for an experienced electronics buyer to join our small but busy team at our South West London HQ. You’ll work to streamline and bulletproof our buying processes, helping us to find the best deal for our customers with every new stock order.

This is an ideal opportunity for the correct candidate to head their own purchasing section within a busy electronic component supplier.

The position is for 16-20 hours per week with flexible hours – ideal for a parent returning to work!

Salary D.o.E, but in line with current market rates.

Please apply via email, enclosing your CV and a cover letter.

Technical Intern (Summer Months)

We’re looking for a technical intern possibly mid-way through an electronics or computing course for a 6-8 week placement over the summer months.

You’ll be joining a small but dynamic team serving tens of thousands of customers through a busy e-commerce operation. You’ll have the opportunity to work on day to day operations along with several mini projects based around your areas of study or interest.

This position is not paid, but travelling expenses from within the Greater London area will be paid for.

Please apply via email, enclosing your CV and a cover letter.

It uses NXP’s Cortex-M0 LPC11U24 chip and is expressly designed to get you up and running *quickly* with USB and low power applications. It’s cheaper than the original mbed, and comes in a natty shade of yellow (!!). The online compiler used to write the mbed code has been updated as well to work with the new processor.

You may have seen the Fez Spider ‘.Net Gadgeteer’ kit – now say hello to the Spider’s big sister, the Hydra. It’s a 100% open-source (hardware and software) .NET Gadgeteer compatible mainboard running .NET Micro Framework. It incorporates a 240Mhz AT91SAMRL ARM9 processor. With 16MB of SDRAM an 4MB of FLASH. Whoooaa!

Arduino have released some new goodies – first up, the Uno has been reworked and released as ‘Revision 3′. There’s really not much difference, but a couple of extra signals are broken out to new pins. All of the old shields are still compatible. We’re now *only* selling revision 3 Unos.

Also released from Arduino, their official motor driver shield. Capable of driving two DC motors at varying speed and directions, the shield uses the L298P chip and can cope with 4 Amps per channel!

Finally, lets talk displays! The uLCD43 is a lovely, glossy touch screen from those folk at 4D Systems. It’s 4.3″ in size, 480 x 272 QVGA resolution, RGB 65,000 colours, with a touch overlay. Like most of 4D systems displays, this screen uses the ’4DGL’ display language to draw primitives and display images and video. As an added extra, the board also has an onboard sound output with built in amplifier! And that’s just the tip of the features iceberg!

Arduino

Okay – first up. ‘Arduino‘ is the name (it’s Italian) for a whole range of mini-computers. Arduino users need to program their unit with a computer language, which is easy to learn but relatively powerful. The Arduino system is an ideal starting block for younger folk, but also for seasoned professionals. You can be up and running with an Arduino in minutes, and you need nothing but your computer (a PC or a Mac is fine) a USB cable, and (of course) an Arduino. Programming software is free, and downloadable from the internet.

The most basic Arduino is called the ‘Uno‘ and is about the size of a pack of cards. We sell it singly, and as part of a starter kit – which has a range of bits and bobs that will make learning faster and more enjoyable. Nothing in the starter kit requires the use of a soldering iron. By the way Arduino is *huge* – there are millions of people using the technology around the world. Some of our customers have even taken Arduinos to the Antarctic.

If you want to do more stuff, there are things called ‘shields‘. These are simply add-on boards that fit on top of your Arduino. Their function ranges from a shield that allows your Arduino to connect to the internet via WiFi, to something that will allow your Arduino to control a couple of motors. There are also shields that allow you to send SMS text messages and make mobile phone calls!

We also have a great book for beginners called Getting Started with Arduino!

The ‘Fez’ range and the Netduino

Next up is another range of tiny micro-computer boards similar in size and shape to the Arduino Uno. Unlike the Uno, these use more powerful processors and are programmed using a different computer language (called C sharp or C#). One of the good things about this language is that it can be very fast to develop quite complicated applications (involving for example cameras, touch screens, USB devices)

We’d recommend something like the FEZ Panda II or the Netduino as starter items. Again, to program them you’ll need a computer. As with the Arduino, there are lots of free tutorials available on the internet.

If you’d like to spend a bit more money, the ‘FEZ Spider‘ kit is great – this is a central board, with lots of ‘offshoot‘ boards that plug into the central board. This means no soldering, and very fast development of complex projects.

The .Net systems are great for people who’ve had a little bit (or a lot) of programming experience, and are looking to experiment with hardware.

The mbed and the m3pi robot

Another system is the mbed. Again, it uses another programming language (this time called C++). The mbed has lots of onboard features including a flash memory disk and LEDs. Programmed with the right instructions, the mbed can become the brain of a robot called the m3pi. This robot has two small motors, and a few sensors, but can whizz around the floor at a good speed. After you have mastered the mbed, and the robot, you can add on a range of sensors to give it more ability to navigate around obstacles.

If you don’t fancy the idea of a robot, the mbed is great on its own. It doesn’t use shields like the Arduino system, but it does have a very useful board called the ‘mbed workshop breakout board‘ that gives users access to the mbed through a series of different connectors and also has an SD card slot.

Other Things

So all the things we’ve talk about so far have been fully fledged micro-processor board systems, and whilst they will all make great gifts, you may be looking for something else a little less complicated.

So what about a book? – we stock a good range of interesting titles coving a range of different areas. Sometimes books are a fantastic gift for people who’re looking to learn a new skill or area of expertise.

Another popular gift range is tools – we stock a nice range. At the ‘Rolls Royce’ end are these lovely digital storage oscilloscopes. These are the size of an ipod and allow electrical waveforms to be measured and shown on the colour screen. When you’re trying to find a fault in a project, these units can be very helpful.

At the budget end of the tool range, we have lovely things like ‘vernier calipers‘. These are one of the tools we use the most here at Cool Components and allow use to very quickly and accurately measure tiny things. With a digital scale you can show the measurement as inches or millimeters. They come in a plastic case, but the tool itself is made from precision, acid-etched steel.

Even cheaper – what about some wire cutters, wire strippers or tweezers for handling tiny components. All of these are some of the best tools that we’ve worked with at this price, so quality is very high.

So that’s it – we hope you’ve got a few ideas about some cheap or not so cheap gift ideas. If you need more help, please feel free to give us a call an talk through the type of item that you’re considering. We’ve done this for years – so our guys have a good knowledge about what the best type of item would be for a given type of person.

We’re initially selling the Fez Spider board as part of a kit including a display, a camera, and lots of other cool peripherals, however over time, you’ll start to see more and more of the components being listed on their own. We’re already listing the camera, serial USB module and mainboards separately.

New from the US, this fantastic Arduino shield. The Gameduino is based around a powerful chip that can handle basic, but high quality 2D sprite based computer graphics. The chip can also pump out good quality stereo sound effects. To top it all there’s a full size VGA monitor connector so you can hook up your 152″ plasma. All of this means that it’s easy to create very cool computer games.

Already the Gameduino’s creator has ported Manic Miner, Asteroids, and many others…

Next – if you’re using kit with an Xbee socket on it, why not make the move to WiFi? We’re now selling these impressive modules from Roving Networks. They’re a standard RN131 WiFly module in an Xbee form factor. The pins and power supplies are similar, so you can pull out your Xbee and plop in one of these.

Finally, for the UAV or RC fanatics out there a new board that allows you to control your aircraft from your Android enabled phone. The ‘phoneDrone’ board gives the phone a number of essential hardware resources including 8 servo channels and 3 serial ports. On the phone, software to control the board can be quickly written using Google’s ADK (Accessory Development Kit).

Last but not least, if you’re flying a quad (or hex or octo) copter, we now stock 10″ and 12″ propeller blades. They come in matched push/pull pairs with hub rings to match to your favourite brushless motor.

This is a fantastic opportunity to work within the heart of a growing and dynamic business. We’re looking for someone who can make a difference dealing with the lions share of operational issues :

Top of the list is customer service, but you’ll also be involved in sales, product selection and buying, import and dispatch, advertising and marketing as well as other key business areas.

You’ll be passionate about what we do, and about helping us expand and streamline our operations. In return we’ll give you high levels of responsibility and decision making in a rewarding environment.

You’ll ideally come from a customer service background, but will have a good technical understanding of our product range or the ability to get it quickly. Graduates are welcome to apply but will need to demonstrate clear ability and experience in summer job roles and a level-headed ability in business.

We love passionate, interested people who have crazy ideas that can help turn our business around. We’re not IBM, so your input can and will make a real difference.

The position is full time, based at our London (SW11) offices. Salary is negotiable and will depend on experience and how awesome you are. Applications by email to info at coolcomponents dot co dot uk. No agents please!

PHP / MySQL / Javascript Developer

We’re looking for a developer to work on our website and possibly some other projects. You’ll be a seasoned PHP programmer, with an in depth knowledge of MySQL. You’ll consume computer languages like smarties, but your other areas of expertise will include javscript, jQuery and Git.

The successful applicant will work in-house at our London (SW11) offices as part of our small and dynamic core business team. Your programming assignments will revolve around making our website faster, stronger and sleeker as we implement AJAX features and external API functions.

We love passionate, interested people who have crazy ideas that can help turn our business around. We’re not IBM, so your input can and will make a real difference.

This position is a 3 month contract to start with with a possibility to extend. Salary is negotiable and will depend on experience and how awesome you are. Applications by email to info at coolcomponents dot co dot uk. No agents please!

First up, the Arduino Ethernet. It’s worth saying that this is actually a board with a processor on it, rather than a shield. The Arduino Ethernet effectively combines onto one PCB, the Arduino Uno and the Arduino Ethernet shield. Also – the version we’re selling has an additional PoE module. ‘PoE’ stands for ‘Power Over Ethernet’ and means that DC power can be provided down your LAN cable.

So why do we care about the Arduino Ethernet being PoE enabled? Really it’s because now, there’s an affordable, compact, network portable device that can be plonked (the posh word is ‘deployed’) onto your home/work/university network anywhere where there’s a PoE enabled LAN cable. In business and lots of educational institutions, that’s most places these days. Your Arduino can then sit quietly, reporting sensor readings to a central server, or maybe turn things on and off by remote request.

One final note on PoE – be careful, not all LAN cables have power running through them – this very much depends on your router. If your router doesn’t supplier PoE power into your LAN, you can buy add on modules that will do roughly the same thing. We supply several types.

Next up is the new Mega ADK for Android.

This board has been designed with the world of Android enabled phones / tablets in mind. It’s essentially the same Mega 2560 board but with a hardware interface that can be written to directly and easily by a new add-on to the Android programming language. There’s a USB host chip that talks to the phone, and a power supply that is able to recharge the phone. Because of the way that ADK software is written, it’s possible to plug in a few sensors, and have your phone run a complex, ‘real world’ application with just a few minutes worth of programming. Crazy!

Forgetting the ADK software side of things – because this board has a USB host interface all sorts of possibilities open up – just like the mbed, the board theoretically should be able to talk to various USB dongles – flash drives, GPRS dongles – all sorts!