This document discusses how open source hardware can drive hardware innovation by allowing for the free exchange of ideas and leveraging the work of others. It outlines the typical hardware design process, from ideation to schematics to visualization to firmware/software. It provides an example product called "blink(1)" and discusses how open source tools can help with different stages like circuit design, 3D printing, and software/firmware. The document notes that while some challenges remain, open source can help get an idea to a functional prototype quickly and allow testing across different chip architectures more affordably. It encourages sharing work through blogs to engage makers and early adopters.

1. Hardware: The New Open Source
Driving Innovation
Tod Kurt @todbot
Co-founder
ThingM

2. Fast Product Design
with OSHW
Tod E. Kurt, ThingM
Hardware Innovation Workshop
16 May 2012, Xerox PARC

3. Who Am I?

4. Who Am I?

5. How is Open Source
Useful for
Hardware Development?
free exchange of ideas
leverage the cleverness of others

6. But Mostly...
you save time
And, you get to work with others
And, it’s fun

7. Hardware Design Process
• Ideation / Product Design
• Hardware design / Schematic & Layout
• Product Visualization
• Firmware & Software

8. Example Product:
blink(1)

9. Ideation
Look to similar devices for inspiration

10. Schematic & Board Layout
Explore different chips, different layouts
Choose one, or all, to get PCB fabbed

11. Visualization
SketchUp + EagleUp

12. Visualization
SketchUp + CAD import

13. Visualization & Usability
3D printouts w/ Makerbot

14. Software & Firmware
blink(1)USB pipeline
not your problem

15. Firmware
Open devtools for many chipsets
Atmel AVR: Arduino & AVR-GCC
TI MSP430: MSPGCC
Microchip PIC: SDCC

16. USB stacks
Open USB stacks are growing too:
V-USB (AVR/sw)
LUFA (AVR/hw)
16FUSB (PIC/sw)
Dangerous Prototypes (PIC/hw)

17. Application APIs
Some open & cross platform toolkits:
Processing / Java
WxWidgets
GCC
HTML5 / Node.js
But better to go native

18. What’s Difficult Still?
“Last mile” to screen & keyboard
Atoms (enclosures, etc)

19. The Upside
Idea to functional prototype
in 2 weeks
Multiple design studies on
multiple chip architectures
Manufactureable in a month

20. Giving Back
Publish!
your
company
blog
Get the makers on your side
They’re early adopters, recommenders

21. Thank You
@thingm / @todbot
http://thingm.com/
http://todbot.com/blog/