Our First ever Show.

We have been to the E2BN conference for a 2 day event

Monday was a not too quick trip down to Bedfordshire to set up our stand, then Tuesday and Wednesday we were talking and showing to delegates from schools and Local Authorities.

The event was certainly useful for us. The Starter_Kit got a lot of interest, even more than the Raspberry_Pi .
This was our first ever event of this kind, and I was a bit nervous.
I need not have been, the delegates were really pleasant, and I think I managed to perform okay.
Having had a fairly quiet start on the Tuesday, I quickly wrote some simple code to get the Pi interactive. Nothing fancy, just hello, who are you etc using Python. This made a big difference, so I'm working on getting the software developed a bit. watch this space

It seems that a lot of the schools have already bought Pi's, and with a few notable exceptions, most are stuck in a cupboard waiting to find a use.
The new curriculum, which will go live September 2014, it requiring teachers to teach a programming language from KS2, and two languages, one of which must be text based from KS3.
It seems that some schools have the belief that the Raspberry Pi is the way to go, but this is not necessarily true.
The two programming languages on the Pi OS(operating system) are Scratch, which is picture based, and Python, which is text based. These are ideal for delivering the curriculum, but they are available open source to run on PC’s that the school already owns.
Where the Pi scores highly is that the students are fascinated by the Pi. Being able to see and touch the circuitry scored highly with the students we met at the conference. They also liked the price point and many would look to getting their own for out of school study.

There was feedback from the teachers, that having got the Pi’s, they did not know what to do next. I will try and clarify a few things if I can.
To use the Raspberry Pi, you are going to have to get a few other parts together, so you can use it

·         Keyboard and Mouse (USB type)

·         Power_Supply (similar PSU’s are used for some mobile phones)

·         Screen. The Pi likes HDMI or composite(Scart or RCA) To use a VGA Monitor you need an adaptor

·         Network Cable for using the Internet (or WiFi dongle, but that needs another USB port, so you will also need a USB Hub)

·         SD Card with the Operating System. This is your “Hard Drive” ( Software can be downloaded_yourself, or you can buy a card with the OS_already_on) the minimum you need is 2GB, but that doesn’t leave much storage for your files. We recommend 8GB

Once you have these few parts, you can go ahead and connect everything together. The Pi has not got a switch, to power up you just plug it in. Do this last.
After a moment your screen will start to show a lot of lines of text. This is the self test and boot up. Wait for the Pi to finish and you will get a command for user name and password.
By default the user name is Pi
And the password is raspberry ( note that you won’t see the letters as you type)
Now type startx and you’re up and running

I will add to this blog with what to do next later

During the conference, I got chance to look at some of the other exhibitors.
I must mention a few of them.
Katie at 2simple
I will be looking into how this software can run on the Pi over the next few days
Laura at Code_Club 
You have got to have a look. This is exciting stuff
Francesca at Zu3D
I bought one of these kits, and hope to make some animations for youtube soon

You can see the other exhibitors on the E2BN_website, and there are links to sign up for next year's event. I hope I see you there

Baby Steps

Another week of site work over, tired and frustrated. We have all been there!

A whole weekend to relax and maybe a couple of beers, Smashing.

As usual, it was not to be,
My youngest daughter (13 at the time) wanted some help with aschool project.
Soldering up a timer to make sure you brush your teeth long enough!

Several hours in, the board was soldered, de-soldered, re-soldered, changed and updated. Still not quite as she wanted.

Out with the solderless breadboard and prototype it up first this time.

This led to a fully working circuit in less than half an hour, and she had made MANY changes.

Long story short, we put some bits together, and created a prototyping kit, which went off to school with her on Monday.

When I got back home on Monday night, she was even more excited, Can I make my friends a kit?

When we had made a dozen, I got to thinking maybe..... just maybe......

Baby steps, baby steps

We offered the Kit on ebay, and hoped we might sell 50. That would cover the outlay (okay, not quite, but you get the idea). I have used ebay on and off to buy components for my projects, and it can be a good place to buy, certainly cheaper than the High Street Stores.

It took a week before the first Kit sold.

This is the kit


I was working full-time, and trying to figure out how to use ebay on my evenings, for the first 4 months I was working 16 hours a day, 6 hours just on ebay. Market research, responding to questions, listing new product, trying to work out margins, oh yes.. and assembling the kits
It was worth it though, ebay was generating an income, OVER £20 a week! sigh :(
The first "books" were printed on an old bubble jet

Don't make these mistakes;

• Poor pictures
• Shoddy description
• No real idea about the market
• No choice or product variety

Gradually, the listings became better, customers started to notice, and we started to get some sales. The big change came when I decided to take it seriously. To buy stock, I sold a coin collection (not on ebay) and I suddenly had a thousand pounds to play with.
Oh.. and we got the booklets printed professionally

A thousand pounds does not buy much stock. I had to make the few components stretch to a good few listings, and then re-invest the money coming in straight away.

There are couple of tips to selling I would like to share with you

1. Get your volume up. Even if you sell at or near break even, you need to have a lot of traffic
2. Keep your price as low as you can. It is cut throat, and you must have the traffic
3. Aim for Top Rated Seller
1. Respond quickly to customers
2. Dispatch quickly. the same day if possible
3. Be Accurate with your discription
4. Treat all your customers as if they were the most precious commodity, They ARE
4. Do expect to be tired, frustrated and poor, at least for a while

The corner stone of what I am trying to achieve has been built on customer service.
Its 18 months now since that first kit, so where are we?

I have given up the day job, and sell on-line full time. We are ebay Top Rated Sellers. I have 3 part-time staff. Our ebay feedback is 13,000+ at 100% and we send out an average of 60-100 parcels a day.

we have our own website www.mallinson-electrical.com and regularly supply to schools and business as well as hobbyists. We are working on a free web resource for circuits you can try We have followers on Twitter  and Facebook
All in all things are going well, and I am really glad I switched.
This blog will be used to keep an online diary of what it is to be an online seller and what I do

And the kit? WE have now sold over 5000, and expect to sell that many again in the next 6 months