Libelium opens the new ‘kitchen’ for electronics enthusiasts and the Arduino Community – Cooking Hacks

Libelium CEO Alicia Asín explains, “Over two years ago we observed how recipes and electronics hacks share much in common: there is always a list of ingredients or components and a set of instructions to get the result. The Cooking Hacks website is a direct result of this vision”. She adds, “We love technology and we love cooking! We are passionate about making electronics as affordable and accessible as high quality home cooking”.

Cooking Hacks provides electronics enthusiasts and students with a comprehensive set of resources including: - a shop, extensive documentation and tutorials, a special “Let’s Cook!” community section, a forum and customer service. Cooking Hacks is much more than just an online shop; it enables users to share tips, solve problems, find new applications and even show off their cooking skills.

Recipes follow a fairly standard pattern typically indicating ingredients, cooking difficulty, preparation time, and step-by-step instructions. The “Let’s Cook!” facility enables users to enter their electronic hacks in the same way and, if appropriate, provide links to external video demonstrations. It also, optionally, allows users to submit a recipe to accompany the hack and to provide a Cooking Hack photo showing the final results of both the hack and the recipe.

Alicia Asín explains, “We hope to make electronics more democratic through easy-to-read tutorials and through electronic hacks that are written in a recipe-like manner”. She adds, “To kick-off the Cooking Hacks website, we are challenging users to submit their most creative electronic hacks and recipes before 1st November 2010”. Contributors who meet the contest criteria will be rewarded by a 20% discount on their next Cooking Hacks shop purchase.

The shop sells fully assembled products, DIY kits and components. A special section is devoted to boards and Libelium wireless modules for Arduino. This section also features the World’s first open mote – Libelium’s SquidBee. Hobbyists will also be able to find robotic components, lab tools, antennas, LEDs and small sensors as well as a choice of batteries and solar panels.

The new website draws on previous work to make electronics suitable for laypersons including the Arduino open source platform. Libelium has already been one of the biggest contributors to this community by designing seven plug-in modules. Its modular design philosophy maximises the use of existing resources in order to minimise the cost. For example, its Arduino RFID & Bluetooth modules are both compliant with the Arduino Xbee shield thus avoiding the need to design special Arduino boards with the radio functionality. This development experience means that Libelium is uniquely placed to provide added-value services to the Arduino community. Cooking Hacks provides high quality tutorials and customer support.

With this new business line, Libelium completes its technology offering covering the whole range between professional and hobbyist users.

The products offered on the Cooking Hacks website are mainly aimed at educational and hobby use, although they can be also used by companies in early prototyping stages.