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We really enjoy doing workshops not only because it's an excuse for us to tinker but also because everytime we meet so many interesting people and get helpful feedback. 

So we finally decided to do these regularly, here in our studio in Berlin! From now on, you can join us twice a month, once for beginners and once for advanced tinkerers.

Hope to meet you soon, and spread the word!

When: 

Wednesdays 7pm - 10pm, (almost) every other week
The first workshop will be a Newbie Workshop on April 11th, the first Advanced Workshop will be on May 2nd.

What:

Arduino Newbie Workshops

The best way to get started -- a hands-on introduction to Arduino and electronics with like-minded people. Learn all the basics in only three hours!

Read more and sign up!

Arduino etc. Advanced Workshops

For progressive tinkerers, we'll have changing advanced topics. Get expert support on your projects, learn a new trick, and get to know other people in the community.

Read more and sign up!

Who:

This is really for anybody, no matter if you just heard about these things for the first time, or you're a seasoned master. Max. 15 participants per workshop.
Your workshop hosts will be André Knörig and Stefan Hermann from the Fritzing core team.

The workshops will be held in German or English, depending on the audience.

Where: 

At the Fritzing HQ, Brunnenstr. 7 d, in Berlin-Mitte (near Rosenthaler Platz).

How much:

30€ per participant, including free drinks and pizza!
If you don't have any equipment, you can buy a Starter Kit and/or Upgrade Kit when you arrive.

Fritzing goes beta!

With the release of 0.7 we are dropping the Alpha in favor of a new, shiny Beta. Why do we think the new version deserves this? Because we finally cleaned up two longstanding architectural flaws. While you won't notice any difference when you launch the new version, these changes will make your work with Fritzing clearer, cleaner, and easier, not to mention whiter, brighter, and more sparkly.

fzz is the new fz

First, we are deprecating the old .fz file format in favor of the .fzz file format (formerly known as the "shareable" format). You can still load your old .fz files, but Fritzing will only save out .fzz files. The .fzz format is just a zip file that contains a sketch file plus any custom parts used in that sketch. Essentially the new "Save" is the old "Save as Shareable". This change eliminates a number of prompts when you open and save files, and makes sure that custom parts always travel with the sketch they belong to--which used to cause a lot of trouble.

When a sketch containing custom parts is loaded, the parts are placed into a temporary parts bin, which is only available while the sketch is open. You can move parts out of that bin (for example, into the My Parts bin) if you want to use the custom parts in other sketches.

all views are now created equal

Second, all three views now behave in the same way. There is no longer an implied workflow that suggests starting with the breadboard view and then moving on to schematics or PCB.  In other words, the breadboard view is no longer the master--you can start working in any view and clean up the breadboard view later. In the old days this was very difficult because the breadboard view would get messy when you made changes in the other views.

This equality is achieved by making the breadboard view use ratsnest lines just like the other views. If you see a ratsnest line in a given view, it represents a connection you have made between parts in another view. If you always work in the same view, you will never see a ratsnest line. If you work across multiple views and see a ratnest line in a particular view, you can decide whether to lay out the connection in that view.

An important implication is that if you connect two parts by mistake--say by drawing a wire between them--and then delete the wire, the connection will be gone. But if those parts had also been connected in another view, when you delete the wire, the ratsnest line will be restored.

By contrast, deleting a ratsnest line means deleting the connection in all three views. Much of the time, this means that you will be deleting a wire between those parts. But it may mean a part gets disconnected from the breadboard in Breadboard view.  Or it may mean that a wire between different parts get deleted, because the connection represented by the ratsnest line is not direct--for example, if the ratsnest line is between A and B, but the actual wires are drawn from A to C to B. So be a little careful when you delete ratsnest lines--it may be safer to switch to one of the other views and do the deletion there.

smoother

Everyone around Fritzing HQ is saying how much smoother and more predictable it is to work with Fritzing 0.7.0 compared to earlier versions. We hope you will feel the same way. Watch out for one of Stefan's Killer Tip videos to show off some of the 0.7.0 improvements.

Enjoy,

Your Fritzing Team.

Our friends from FabLab Torino have created a wonderful tutorial (thanks to Federico Vanzati) on how you can prepare a Fritzing circuit for production with a CNC milling machine. It's a relatively straightforward process using a vector software like Inkscape to convert the Fritzing DIY format to the "negative" format that the milling machine requires. The picture above shows the result. What's nice is that they now also sourced the adequate DIY CNC machine. The Roland iModela is now available in the Arduino Store.

There have been attempts from others to mill Fritzing circuits: Checkout Don Roberts' report, and also the tutorial from the FabLab Amersfoort (thanks to Peter Uithoven).

And then there's still Fritzing Fab. :)

Nach der Veröffentlichung des Arduino Video Workshops auf Englisch kommt nun die deutschsprachige Synchronisation:

14 Folgen Einsteigerworkshop zum Thema Arduino und Elektronik.

Bitte weitersagen:

Arduino Lernen Episode 001 - Elektronische Grundlagen
Diese Episode klärt ein paar elektronische Grundlagen wie Strom und Spannung, Leistung und Arten von Stromkreisen.

Arduino Lernen Episode 002 – Arduino Überblick
Diese Episode stellt das Arduino-Board vor.

Arduino Lernen Episode 003 – Digital Out mit Blink
Diese Episode klärt, was ein digitales Signal ist und wie ein Programm auf das Arduino übertragen wird. Dazu gibt es einen Einstieg in die Programmierumgebung von Arduino.

Arduino Lernen Episode 004 – Digital Out mit SOS
Diese Episode erklärt for-Schleifen und Arrays.

Arduino Lernen Episode 005 – Breadboard Prototyping
Breadboards sind sehr praktisch um Ideen schnell umzusetzen. Diese Episode zeigt, wie du damit arbeiten kannst.

Arduino Lernen Episode 006 – Digital In mit einem Taster
Digitaler Input ist das Thema dieser Folge. Erklärt wird auch, wozu ein Dropdown Widerstand gut ist und wie eine if-Abfrage programmiert wird.

Arduino Lernen Episode 007 – Verstärkung mit einem Transistor
Oft benötigen wir Stromverstärkung. Wie das funktionieren kann, erkläre ich hier.

Arduino Lernen Episode 008 – Analog Out mit Fading
Der Unterschied zwischen digitalen und analogen Signalen wird geklärt, PWM vorgestellt und wir senden ein PWM Signal um eine LED zu dimmen.

Arduino Lernen Episode 009 – Analog In mit Servo und Pott
Diese Folge zeigt das Prinzip, analoge Sensoren auszulesen. Wir steuern einen Servo mit einem Potentiometer.

Arduino Lernen Episode 010 – Analog In mit Servo und LDR
Diese Folge zeigt, was ein Referenz-Widerstand ist und wie er benutzt wird, um analoge Sensoren auszulesen.

Arduino Lernen Episode 011 – Serielle Kommunikation
Datenübermittlung vom Arduino zum Computer.

Arduino Lernen Episode 012 – FIRMATA
Diese Episode stellt FIRMATA vor und zeigt, wie Arduino und Porcessing mit einander kommunizieren können.

Arduino Lernen Episode 013 – Platinenlayout mit Fritzing
Diese Episode zeigt, wie du mit Fritzing ein Platinenlayout erstellen kannst.

Arduino Lernen Episode 014 – Module
Diese sehr kurze Folge beschreibt eine gute Möglichkeit, den Funktionsumfang von Arduino zu erweitern.

(This blog post is showing the german Arduino Video Workshop. Here is the english version.)

This years Fritzing gift is something very special: A complete Arduino Workshop!

14 Episodes of compressed knowledge of this famous Microcontroller for free and for you! Please share and comment.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas :)

1. Learning Arduino Episode 001 – Electronic Basics
   This episode will explain electronic basics like voltage, current, power and different circuits.
2. Learning Arduino Episode 002 – Arduino introduction
   This episode is introducing the Arduino board.
3. Learning Arduino Episode 003 – Digital Out with Blink
   This episode will show you, what a digital signal is an how you can transfer a program on the Arduino board. The Arduino programming environment is explained, too.
4. Learning Arduino Episode 004 – Digital Out with SOS
   This episodes shows the use of for-loops and arrays.
5. Learning Arduino Episode 005 – Breadboard Prototyping
   Breadboards are very useful to prototype ideas in short time. This episode will show, how to work with it.
6. Learning Arduino Episode 006 – Digital In with a button
   The digital input is the topic of this episode. The need of a drop down resistor is explained and in programming the if-condition.
7. Learning Arduino Episode 007 – Amplification with a transistor
   Amplification is needed very often. The main principle of it is shown here.
8. Learning Arduino Episode 008 – Analog Out with Fading
   The difference between digital and analog signals is explained, PWM introduced and we will send an analog signal out to fade a LED.
9. Learning Arduino Episode 009 – Analog In with Servo and Knob
   This episode will show the principle of sensing a resistor relation. A potentiometer and even a servo motor will be explained.
10. Learning Arduino Episode 010 – Analog In with Servo and LDR
    This episode will show you the use of a reference resistor when using analog sensors.
11. Learning Arduino Episode 011 – Serial communication
    Transmit signals from the Arduino to the computer.
12. Learning Arduino Episode 012 – FIRMATA
    This episode will show you how to work with Arduino and Processing using the FIRMATA library.
13. Learning Arduino Episode 013 – PCB layout with Fritzing
    In this episode I will show you, how to make a PCB out of your circuit using Fritzing.
14. Learning Arduino Episode 014 – using modules
    This episode will show you how to extend your Arduino.

Thanks to everyone for sending in your inspiring/cute/impressive projects via mail, Twitter, and our project gallery! It was tough for us to make a decision, let alone come up with a good set of criteria. ...ta-dahhhh, and the winners are:

1. The Super Upgrade Kit goes to hdf_mjf_de for his simple, yet fun and beautifully and completely documented Beep Game! Of course the built-in Fritzing hommage had us biased.
   
   
2. The free Fab production goes to J_Hodgie for his impressive Mega Motor Shield, because of its mega-ness and for squeezing the latest bleeding edge features out of Fritzing.
   
   
3. The Edgy Motor Breakout goes to RainerWierland for his Tilduino, a handy, compact Arduino clone he built for his son, again thoroughly documented.
   
   

We also can't resist to give a special price to another delightful project, for the simplest project with the greatest impression: Mario Böhmer's Show Love in a Heartbeat receives a free Fritzing Fab production to turn his project into a real product.

Congratulationsto everyone, and we hope we picked the right present for you all!

This post concludes the year for us and we hope you all had a wonderful one. It certainly has been an exciting time for Fritzing, with big new features, supportive partnerships, fantastic workshops, and most of all a rewarding community. Thank you all!

Hi everyone,

just in time for the season we deliver a new release to play with over the holidays. Even though it's a minor release it comes with a lot of nifty new features:

• The new parts bin navigation lets you easily browse through your part bins and has dedicated bins for some popular manufacturers.
• Fritzing got much faster - especially on the Mac! We owe this speed improvement to the wonderful folks at Qt, who released the new version 4.8.
• Parts can now be rotated freely in breadboard and pcb view. Just hover a selected part over a corner, then drag around.
• Our generic ICs now provide a dedicated pin label editor to make it easier to create custom ICs. You can find it in the inspector window.
• On your PCB, you now can decide if you like to have a ground fill (empty spaces are filled with copper connected to the GND) or just a copper fill (not connected).
• In preparation for the new Super Upgrade Kit you can find new example circuits for 7 segment displays, shift registers, rotary encoders and much more.
• Lots of new parts from parkFun (thanks Lionel, Nathan, Ryan, Robert), Snootlab (thanks Lionel and Lionel), from the Fritzing team (shrouded pin headers, ECB transistors, 3mm LEDs, Superflux LEDs, 5 band resistors, the Atmega 2560, SSOP 28 footprint, rotary encoder).
  We also finally managed to include some of the wonderful community contributed parts (fuse, low dropout voltage regulator, Atmega644, HCF 4067, RTC breakout, HEF 4094, RGB 3W Star, DB-25 connector). Thanks to Johan, Macgyveremir, Forvellos, Mike, SorkiG, Niclas, Kungfumachinist.
• An updated Portugues translation -thanks Nuno!

Give it a spin!

Your little Fritzing elves

New examples

New parts bin navigation

New parts

New pin label editor

Hi everyone,

It's that time of the year again, and we would like to take the opportunity to re-cap what the last year has brought. So here's the Fritzmas challenge 2011: You show us what you did, and we give you what we did.

How you can win

Take a look at what you've built with Fritzing this year, and snap a couple of photos/screenshots. If you think it's an interesting concept, a technical masterpiece, or just fun, we want to see it all.  
Then either upload it to our projects gallery or mail them to info (ät) fritzing.org. (Also, you must agree that we may publish what you send us (if you prefer, anonymized).

Deadline is Sunday, December 18th.

The prizes

From all submissions, we will pick three winners. These will be awarded with the latest Fritzing developments:

The 1st prize is one of the all-new Fritzing Super-Upgrade Kits, to be launched later this year.

The 2nd prize is a free Fritzing Fab PCB production for your project (one copy of your board), through our Fritzing Fab service that we launched in July.

The 3rd prize is the all-new Fritzing Edgy Motor, the first in a series of Fritzing breakout boards with a new, breadboard-friendly approach.

We're very much looking forward to your submissions!

Your Fritzing team

Last weekend we had the pleasure to be invited to the Create. Art and Technology festival in Berlin.

André held a talk about »Frizting – creative electronics for the rest of us« and we gave two intense Fritzing workshops in which people could learn the use of Arduino and Fritzing.

The conference was initiated and organised by our ever-enthusiastic friends Anton Mezhiborskiy from TINKER SOUP and Stefan Canditt from FORMULOR. Great job, guys! Talks on prototyping, wearables, materials, playing, and sensing gave the right inputs and visitors could join workshops such as lasercutting with vvvv, soft circuits,  playing with CUBELETS or – of course – Fritzing.

It was great to meet so many interesting and interested people and we enjoyed this time a lot. Our special treat was to meet several people from the Fritzing forums - it's so much nicer to meet in person! Some of them even showed off their beautiful Fritzing Fab creations.
We are all looking forward to Create. Art and Technology 2012 (hint, hint)!

We arrived on a sunny morning at the train station in Elmshorn (a beautiful village in the north of Hamburg). Martin Hieronymus, who teaches there and invited us, picked us up and took us to the Nordakademie. Sixteen business computer science students already waited to get in touch with electronics and Fritzing. André started by introducing Fritzing and what it is all about. He explained the concept of physical computing and tangible user interfaces, and moved on to the basics of electronics.

Many students had already worked with electronics theoretically and practically before, but most frustrated by the complexity of a basic setup. So as usual it was great to see the excitement of the students when they got their first little led to blink in no time.

Fritzing in the teaching context was doing a wonderful job, and this way everybody learns Fritzing by learning Arduino and electronics.

On the second day, the students developed their own project ideas, for example media-controllers, musical instruments, a binary clock and even an LED Pong.

They successfully transferred their projects to the Fritzing breadboard view and also made the schematics. The last step for this day was to make a PCB layout out of it and get to know the production export and Fritzing Fab process. The feedback of the students concerning the software was amazing. They liked Fritzing a lot and had some very useful ideas to improve the workflow.

Concluding, I have to say it was a trip I don't want to miss. Martin treated us very hospitably and we are looking forward to return to the Nordakademie.

You can find some more impressions on our Flickr-Stream.