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While I think his conclusion is pretty correct, I have to disagree with some of his premises, particularly where he says prototyping is difficult (or more diffi

While I think his conclusion is pretty correct, I have to disagree with some of his premises, particularly where he says prototyping is difficult (or more difficult than software). My reasoning is mostly based on the fact that a great product (or the proof of concept for one) can be based around something like UI/UX improvement, and that's pretty easy to achieve with modern technology (Nest and Fitbit both being great examples of this - simple concepts well executed in reasonably simple hardware platforms). There's tons of capacity to make some really cool HW prototypes in a weekend, or even an afternoon - we do live in the age of the $50 Linux Dev board, after all.

michaelt 13y ago
It depends on the people and how flexible they are in what they want to achieve. If your goals require you to drill a hole and you don't have access a drill your options are fairly limited!
- joezydeco 13y ago
  There's the catch, don'tcha think? We've reached the intersection of cheap/easy development boards combined with a business philosophy of "slap this API on this premade stack glued to this other stack running on this VM and we're ready for our Series A". Adafruit and Sparkfun and the like with all the cheap and easy-to-connect modules have enabled us. They've led us to believe that hardware hacking is easy. Just wire this camera to this accelerometer to this Rpi and we're in business! Does anyone really expect to be etching PCBs in a hackathon? Is a simple breadboard setup good enough to win?
  - cushychicken 13y ago
    >Does anyone really expect to be etching PCBs in a hackathon? Is a simple breadboard setup good enough to win? Yeah, I'd say so. As I've mentioned to other folks in this thread, I feel hardware hackathon entries are more "proof of concept" than "prototype".
logicallee 13y ago
Out of pure curiosity to see where you're coming from - when you say "I have to disagree with some of his premises, particularly where he says prototyping is difficult (or more difficult than software)", have you ever imagined, designed, and built 1) a piece of software 2) a piece of hardware? I don't have preconceptions about what your answers will be, just curious.
- cushychicken 13y ago
  I've done both - I have a background in EE, verging on CompE. I've only ever done hardware professionally, however. I think my view of a prototype is more in line with what an industry would view as a proof of concept - enough hardware to show that your vision is possible. I wouldn't want to show anything I built over a weekend to a VC in an effort to get them to fund me, unless I absolutely had to.
deleted 13y ago
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michaelt 13y ago

It depends on the people and how flexible they are in what they want to achieve. If your goals require you to drill a hole and you don't have access a drill your options are fairly limited!

joezydeco 13y ago
There's the catch, don'tcha think? We've reached the intersection of cheap/easy development boards combined with a business philosophy of "slap this API on this premade stack glued to this other stack running on this VM and we're ready for our Series A". Adafruit and Sparkfun and the like with all the cheap and easy-to-connect modules have enabled us. They've led us to believe that hardware hacking is easy. Just wire this camera to this accelerometer to this Rpi and we're in business! Does anyone really expect to be etching PCBs in a hackathon? Is a simple breadboard setup good enough to win?
- cushychicken 13y ago
  >Does anyone really expect to be etching PCBs in a hackathon? Is a simple breadboard setup good enough to win? Yeah, I'd say so. As I've mentioned to other folks in this thread, I feel hardware hackathon entries are more "proof of concept" than "prototype".

logicallee 13y ago

Out of pure curiosity to see where you're coming from - when you say "I have to disagree with some of his premises, particularly where he says prototyping is difficult (or more difficult than software)", have you ever imagined, designed, and built 1) a piece of software 2) a piece of hardware? I don't have preconceptions about what your answers will be, just curious.

cushychicken 13y ago
I've done both - I have a background in EE, verging on CompE. I've only ever done hardware professionally, however. I think my view of a prototype is more in line with what an industry would view as a proof of concept - enough hardware to show that your vision is possible. I wouldn't want to show anything I built over a weekend to a VC in an effort to get them to fund me, unless I absolutely had to.

deleted 13y ago

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