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It was so obvious that we were surprised ourselves: not only can you transfer your physical breadboard sketch easily into Fritzing, you can also do it the other way around.

Just load a Fritzing sketch and print it on a sheet of paper, and you have a nanometer-perfect paper template which you just have to fill in with the real parts. Good thing that Dirk was so strict about matching the scale to reality.

Here's how it goes:

- Open any sketch

- Click File > Print (be sure to turn off automatic printer scaling) and get your parts ready

- Cut off a corner of the page so it's easier to align the printed breadboard with the physical one.

- Stick the parts and wires through the holes. You might want to use a needle to prepare the holes.

- Connect the Arduino and load the associated code - done!

Now if that's not a great learning tool..

Small caveat: Depending of your brand of breadboard, its power/ground lines might not line up perfectly. So double-check before trying to punch your parts into the plastic. ;)

That's right - we're finally coming full circle with the Fritzing project and are soon launching the much-wanted fabrication service that turns your Fritzing sketches into professional printed circuit boards!

So in order to kick it off, we thought why not celebrate this as a fritzmas present to the community. We will produce 24 of your Arduino Shields (or other) designs you made with Fritzing. You will receive two copies for free, including free shipping.

Deadline for receiving your design is December 9th. Head over to the Fritzing fab page to find out how to participate.

A few weeks ago we had the great honor and pleasure to travel far North to the Umeå Institute of Design in Sweden. We were invited by Camille Moussette to participate in their second Interaction Design Summit, as speakers as well as to give a two-day Fritzing workshop. It was an amazing experience and luckily the guys were keen on documenting everything that was happening.

On the first day, we had a series of inspiring talks from renowned pracititioners in the field of interaction design. Besides Reto Wettach and me, there were talks form German Leon (Vodafone), David Rose (Ambient Devices/Vitality), Jan-Christoph Zoels (Experientia), Karsten Schmidt (toxi/postspectacular) and Clive van Heerden (Philips Design). You can watch all the talks on Vimeo.

After that we held a two day long Fritzing workshop with more than thirty students from all over Sweden (and Canada, apparently..). On the first day, we gave an introduction to Arduino and Fritzing, and students gathered in groups to come up with some simple projects. On the second day, we taught them how to translate their circuits into PCB designs. Finally, we got our hands dirty and everyone etched, drilled, and soldered their own Arduino Shield, complete with fancy graphics.

You can find a lot of nice photos from the event here and here.

Thanks to Camille Moussette, Matt Cottam, and all the students and participants for this great experience!

We have been very grateful to be able to develop Fritzing as a publicly funded project for the last two and a half years. We were able prove that it is a much-needed tool, and could turn it into something people are actually using in their projects or for teaching.

But the sweet times are coming to an end, and we don't want to let you down!  In order to continue development, we must now try to earn money with Fritzing. Don't worry, the software will stay free and open-source. Instead, we are introducing complimentary services.

The first one is our own version of an Arduino kit. Dubbed the Fritzing Starter Kit, it contains everything you need to get started with interactive electronics, and a bit more. Check it out at http://fritzing.org/shop/starter-kit. Get one for your project, a set for your classroom, or one for your curious kid. A kit is 55,-€ plus taxes.

With every kit you purchase you are supporting one hour of Fritzing Development!

Stay tuned for more Fritzing services.

Share your Arduino projects

Look forward to news from Fritzing

YES! Finally we can all share our projects!

You didn't hear from us because we rewrote Fritzing from scratch.

Workshop on the future of Fritzing and Physical Computing

Fritzing support until end of 2009!