A crowdfunding campaign is underway to develop the DuinoKit Jr: a user-friendly system to learn electronics and programming without soldering or prior experience based on the Arduino platform.

Asheville, NC -- (SBWire) -- 02/06/2015 --The ultimate gadget for not only geeks but hobbyists of every stripe, Arduino is a tool for making specialized small computers that can sense and control more of the physical world than conventional desktop computers, iPads, Androids and other popular technologies. Arduino is an open-source physical computing platform based on a basic circuit board coupled with a development environment for writing software to drive what Arduino does. In as much as Arduino is becoming increasingly popular, the highly technical nature of the platform is widely regarded as the biggest barrier holding a lot of people back from exploring everything Arduino can do.

Full time math teacher Dan Alich changed all that by making it easy for anyone to explore the world of Arduino gadget creation without an electrical engineer standing by. After buying several Arduinos and boxes of parts and a book or two, Dan set out to help show some of his students how to start making things with Arduino. Very quickly all the parts were getting bent and lost which definitely was a damper on the learning experience. Drawing on his own experience with hobbyist electronics in the 1980s thanks to Radio Shack, he spent nearly two years developing and designing a simple "plug and play" process involving no soldering and a kit with a variety of parts that could not be lost. The result? Arduino is now easy for anyone to enjoy.

On the heels of his successful DuinoKit Essentials project, requests came in from hobbyists, teachers and parents for a smaller DuinoKit that could be used at a more basic level and as a primary tool for teaching during summer camps or simple classroom examples. The overall desire was to see a smaller kit made or a beginner that didn't blow their mind as they looked over all the different parts, wires and components for the very first time.

Enter - The DuinoKit Jr. Despite its entry-level approach, the DuinoKit Jr is versatile enough to be used to make a digital thermometer, a message display, a Simon-like memory game (complete with scorekeeping), a remote control alarm clock, a lie detector among many other possibilities limited mostly by the designer's own imagination.

Crowdfunding is sought to provide the capital needed to produce the DuinoKit Jr in quantity. Each DuinoKit Jr. will be shipped in the metal case and include an Arduino-compatible microprocessor (Nano), connection wires, a USB cable for programming through a computer and a set of learning cards all based on the fully-assembled and ready-to-go prototype. The target ship date is May 2015 – right on time for summer camp and summer vacations.

This crowdfunding campaign ends on March 1, 2015.

The DuinoKit Jr. Kickstarter Page- http://kck.st/1F7BsIE

The Official DuinoKit Website - http://duinokit.com

About Dan Alich
A math teacher for the past several years, Dan turned his lifetime of interest in electronics both as a hobbyist and a professional into a fulfilling business that teaches as much as it entertains. Dan holds a Masters degree in Entrepreneurship and is always on the lookout for a creative idea.