Arduino and Seeed Studio announce partnership at Maker Faire Shenzhen

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Seeed Studio will manufacture and distribute Arduino LLC products using the new Genuino brand in Asia.

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Back in May, Massimo Banzi took the Maker Faire Bay Area stage for the highly-anticipated “State of Arduino” address. During what was surely one of the most highly-anticipated sessions of the show, the Arduino co-founder announced a New York City manufacturing partnership with Adafruit, the availability of the Arduino Zero and Wi-Fi Shield 101, as well as the launch of a sister brand dubbed Genuino (“genuine” in Italian) for boards outside of the United States.

One month later at Maker Faire Shenzhen, Banzi has returned with some other big news: He and Eric Pan, founder and CEO of Seeed Studio, have unveiled a strategic partnership between Arduino LLC and Seeed Studio. Similar to their collaboration with Adafruit here in America, Seeed Studio will manufacture and distribute Arduino LLC products using the new Genuino brand in China and other Asian markets.

“The new Genuino name certifies the authenticity of boards, in line with the open hardware and open source philosophy that has always characterized Arduino,” Banzi explains. “We are very excited to partner with Seeed Studio to manufacture our products in China. We’ve known and appreciated Seeed for years, we share the same values and I think they are one of the most forward looking companies in China.”

As popular as Arduino has become throughout China, Banzi notes that the brand has been heavily used without permission. Fortunately, Genuino will allow the market to clearly identify which products are indeed authentic and contributing to the open source hardware process. The brand will still emulate the 8- and 32-bit chips that Makers have grown accustomed to over the years, such as the Uno (ATmega328) and Mega (ATmega2560), in a familiar teal and white color scheme.

“Arduino is becoming a global language of making, we are proud to help provide Genuino branded localized products to carry on the conversation in China. Here we already have a huge Arduino user base and growing, it’s time to get us involved deeper with global ecosystem,” Pan added.

Genuino-branded products will be sold on Seeed’s store on Taobao and on Genuino’s official site in the near future.

MakerCamp builds weeklong Makerspace at Maker Faire Shenzhen

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30 Makers will create a Makerspace inside a freight container.

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When it comes to Makerspaces, one thing we’ve learned in recent years is that these can range from abandoned 80,000-square-foot warehouses to mobile pop-up shops in the back of a van. Typically speaking, launching such a place requires the rallying of Makers, strategically determining a location, acquiring a variety of tools like 3D printers and basic electronics, and of course, time. However, one group is looking to accelerate this process by cramming it all into one week with limited resources.

Beginning on June 12th, Makers from across the world will take part in building an actual Makerspace in Shenzhen out of a freight container, as well as populating the teched-out trailer with exciting educational workshops — in just seven days. Dubbed MakerCamp Shenzhen, the project is a collaboration between Berlin-based HacKIDemia and the Chaihuo Makerspace.

The container itself will sit on the site of the upcoming Maker Faire Shenzhen, the heart of China’s burgeoning Maker Movement. This weeklong summer camp will provide 30 participants with unparalleled access to experienced mentors, various materials and Shenzhen’s most established DIYers to take their projects and skills to the next level. In addition to simply constructing the space, there will be a couple days worth of workshops alongside some of the world’s leading Makers, including Autodesk’s Dawn Danby, Quirky’s Jordan Husney, Maker Faire’s Kevin Lau and Tinkerspace’s Lynn Liu.

“Makerspaces are ideal places for Makers to not only get access to tools, but also to meet like-minded people and further their DIY education. However, many communities particularly in China, are still lacking Makerspace, and often times the startup cost is prohibitive,” explains Stefania Druga, founder of HacKIDemia. “MakerCamp, on the other hand, shows communities like Shenzhen that it is possible to build a Makerspace, and a successful curriculum around it with limited resources.”

In just its second MakerCamp, HacKIDemia has already begun to attract attention from the DIY community on a global scale. Last summer, the team put on a monthlong camp in Berlin which attracted over 15 participants spanning across several countries.

“After working with makers in the most remote parts of the world as part of HacKIDemia and Afrimakers, a community for makers in Africa,  I realized that local communities would like to create affordable makerspaces and they don’t know how to get started. This is how we got the idea to use shipping containers which can be sourced everywhere and design, build and document the most affordable makerspace where makers from all over the world can create a space that inspires them to tinker,” Druga adds.

The weeklong event (June 12-18th) will take place in the week leading up to Maker Faire Shenzhen. Interested? You can head over to MakerCamp’s page here.

Atmel heads to Shenzhen to talk Makers

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Shenzhen has emerged on the Maker scene for its shortened development cycles, entrepreneurial spirit and DIY culture.

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Sander Arts, Atmel VP of Corporate Marketing, continued his trip through China with a stop in Shenzhen on Wednesday, January 21, where he had the chance to explore the latest and greatest innovations coming out of the city, in particular those being created inside Seeed Studio — a hardware innovation platform designed to enable Makers to grow inspirations into differentiating products.

There, Arts had the opportunity to sit down with the Seeed Studio team, including founder Eric Pan, to discuss the Maker Movement, open-souce hardware as well as Chinese DIY culture. Later on, the Atmel VP participated in a well-attended press event with a number of journalists, tinkerers and entrepreneurs to discuss Atmel’s place at the heart of the rapidly growing global movement, and of course, the Internet of Things.

Recently, 35-year-old Shenzhen — which is located in the southern region of China — has emerged as quite the innovation hub, spurring Makers from all walks of life to delve deep into their imaginations and develop their ideas. Leveraging on its experience in manufacturing goods and access to parts, countless entrepreneurs, tinkerers and hobbyists have been drawn to the city.

“Shenzhen is a unique environment for passionate Makers with an entrepreneurial spirit,” Slate’s Silvia Lindtner explained.

The city’s capabilities have aided manufacturers in greatly shortening the production timeline from ‘Maker to market,’ which greatly enhances experimentation and provides a reliable, cost-effective solution for startups. In fact, the last few years have experienced an uptick in new companies coming to Shenzhen to finalize their concepts with notable examples including Pebble and Oculus Rift, Slate reveals. Additionally, hackerspaces and accelerators (like HAXLR8R and Highway1) have had an integral influence on innovators, another surefire sign that the Maker Movement has, indeed, arrived.

“Makerspaces will likely enable a new wave of tech startups in China as in the U.S. To be sure, Makers working with their peers are now able to more easily realize their goals, while bringing products to market with new platforms such as e-commerce sites and crowdfunding. 

Nevertheless, major companies in China are somewhat cautious about encouraging grass-root innovations, even though some of them are actively involved in a collaborative dialogue with Makers as part of a strategic open innovation strategy,” Eric Pan, founder of Seeed Studio, told in a recent interview.

Developed in 2008, Seeed Studio is a convergence of manufacturing and a true embodiment of the so-called Maker culture. The company designs and produces its own open hardware kits, platforms and custom PCBs, while serving as a distributor for a large number of brands like the Atmel based Arduino. Moreover, it has even played a pivotal role in establishing the hardware incubation project HAXLR8R as well as the very first Maker Faire in Shenzhen.

Just last year, MAKE: Magazine‘s Dale Dougherty announced the inaugural full-scale Maker Faire in China, which successfully recognized the significance of the city as a global capital for DIYers. An estimated 30,000 people walked the tree-lined streets to partake in the event, while 300 Makers manned 120 exhibits.

“Maker Faire Shenzhen shined a light on the externalities and ecosystems of making itself: the political regimes which regulate; the infrastructures which support it; the forms of work that drive it; and the culture and history that shape it,” an earlier Guardian article noted.

“One thing is for certain. The inherent entrepreneurial spirit of the Chinese people will help the Maker culture grow – and vice versa. 

The biggest hurdle, from what I can tell, may very well come from established educational facilities, simply because Chinese students expect to be trained in traditional methods when specific professional skills are required. 

However, exposure to multiple academic disciplines will encourage people to people think out of the box and explore different ways of approaching problems and opportunities. In addition, being asked more open-ended practical questions instead of simply memorizing facts would go a long way in encouraging students to try out real-world solutions,” Pan says.