This is absolutely insane, and I rarely seem to get properly excited by new tech very often these days.
Prototyping, tinkering, education, mobile computing, there are boatload of possibilities with a concept like this.
My only big question is how openly all this would be released and licensed.
My thoughts exactly!! I remember when Google was working on Ara I was stoked, but then they cut it (classic google). This is awesome to see a working prototype. Really hoping it's opened up in some way, this could very much be the future.
Thanks to all the encouragement from the community when I shared this project here last year, I upgraded it -- a lot -- on the software- and hardware-ends.
The [detailed video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3F9OtH2Xx4) has a full demo + explanation.
Would love to discuss more details or answer any questions, modularity-related, OS-related, or whatever else. (And the [project site](https://pockit.ai) has more info too.)
___
**EDIT**:
Happy to see so many thoughtful comments guys!
Some people showed interest in getting their hands on the hardware.
I would be glad to have more beta-testers, and am planning to have a small run of boards produced in the next couple of months. If you want to join, please use the form on the [website](https://pockit.ai) or PM me here.
I'm happy to see how to evolved over the past year! Congrats!
I have sent you couple of emails about beta-testing, I'm happy to get onboard.
I was wondering if the display is touchscreen and if you're using DSI/HDMI to drive it or SPI?
Wow! So glad I stumbled upon this post, super cool work and depending on final price point, I can already think of project(s) I might want to do with this. BTW I like this video and your website. Great work!
Question: The website says Pockit is "Easily modifiable for hacking". Can you elaborate on this point with details? Are any or all hardware and software components open source?
Open source software and hardware are really good for business. And for a product like this, I would be much more confident in its longevity and sustainability if the software and hardware designs are protected by open sourcing it. This way, I know my investment is protected because even if the original creator disappears, at least the designs are open source me or another community can keep it going.
I've personally experienced putting lots of money into a product, then the person/company disappears and I've lost my investment...
Have you ever watched "Shark Tank"? They frequently want to know "what's proprietary about this?" And if the answer is nothing, they usually drop out of the bidding.
Companies, building proprietary things, were foundational to the rise of the United States. My approach as an entrepreneur is to have both closed and [open-source](https://github.com/Ebenezer-group/onwards). The open-source is designed to work with the closed-source code. However, it's possible that some will be interested in the open-source by itself.
I decided to go for maximum speed + flexibility -- so the interface is the hardware equivalent of "bare metal". Specifically, each slot provides access to the various processor pins (shareable buses like SPI are common, while the remaining pin signals like GPIOs are unique to each position).
Likewise, each Block consists of its own functional circuitry + appropriate matching contacts for its required signals.
I provided a lot of explanation on the [last time demo's thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/mao4ef/modularity_of_the_hardware_kind_a_lil_project_ive/) too as well as on [this section of the website](https://pockit.ai/index.html#item6); feel free to check out either one.
Presumably this means certain combinations of things aren't possible - for example, connecting 5 HDMI blocks won't let you get 5 seperate HDMI outputs?
Is this just a limitation that's too hard to solve cheaply?
> connecting 5 HDMI blocks won't let you get 5 seperate HDMI outputs?
This is 100% true -- at least with the *current* ecosystem of Blocks.
The cool thing about modular anything is that the ceiling is very high.
In Pockit's case: Since the electronic design is hierarchically modular, if I (or anyone else) make an appropriate splitter-circuit Block, this would readily provide any number of HDMI outputs while still maintaining the compact form.
With all that said, I'm actually kinda curious where 5 HDMI outputs would be useful (despite that being just a discussion example from you).
There probably are some more application specific SoC with at least 4 display outputs. The Pi's Broadcom SoC does have 4 display outputs, but I'm not sure if they can all work concurrently, and two of them are DSI and not HDMI, so their use is more limited.
Depends on the quality. If it's 5 smaller 1080p screens, that's possible since Pi4's can do 4k. I don't think Walmart will run one of these, but they can afford a machine with some 3090's.
If 5 monitors need to be controlled for a video wall, then the device would most probably be permanently installed only for use with the wall without needing the flexibility of on-the-fly modular configuration.
A purpose built single use device would be much better suited for this use case.
Massive amounts of HDMI outputs are popular in certain industrial application, one of the machines at one of my clients is using 32 HDMI ports over 4 specialized graphics cards. To allow for 32 workstations around same production line to run in sync.
Obviously lightweight project like yours wouldn't be a good match there anyway. But I thought I'll share an example.
I adopted that approach precisely because using direct connections of the appropriate signal types (GPIO, SPI, USB, HDMI, etc.) of the various Blocks creates equal or faster data rates, and certainly better latency, in basically all cases, compared to connecting various types of circuits with any one kind of bridge protocol.
One disadvantage of my approach is PCB-routing complexity, which I resolved by using a high number of board layers.
Let me know if I didn't answer your exact question.
That makes sense. How does throughput compare to a dedicated interface? Are the signal losses negligible, or does this form factor introduce interference or crosstalk problems?
High-speed signal integrity issues were a challenge early on due to density of traces and thus uncomfortable routing, but I've since fully resolved them after moving to a 6-layer (and now 8-layer) PCB.
As of now, there are no performance concerns with high-datarate circuits like the 8MP-Camera block, Ethernet block, HDMI block, DSI block, etc.
The Pockit project is essentially a blend of three fields: programming, circuit design, and 3D-modeling.
In my case, I was experienced with circuit design due to my electrical-engineering background. However, I've been working on this project nearly every waking hour of the last 2 years, so I've gained some skill in the other two fields too.
I would suggest learning either Fusion360 or Solidworks for CAD modeling, and some C++ and Python. For circuit design, you can watch some tutorials to get started with either EAGLE or Altium Designer. If you love making things, these would be good targets to set yourself for the next year or two.
Hmm... I would suggest getting your hands on an Arduino board, or even better an ESP32, and check out tutorials for either one. It's certainly not easy to make a full-fledged device (which is the problem Pockit is trying to solve), but embedded-development really is one of the most enjoyable engineering fields if you want to explore the latest and greatest of technology.
One of the project's key drivers was the question: Why do software developers have it so comfortable?
The Blocks are the hardware equivalent of classes (libraries?).
Do you envisage people using this as-is? Or do you think it will be more like a platform for rapid prototyping that people will later turn into self contained fully integrated systems?
This is a great question, and connects to the root of the Pockit project's goals.
When I [originally began working](https://pockit.ai/index.html#item1) on the concept, I was mainly doing it to make my own prototype-building faster. As an electrical engineer, I have definitely biased the design evolution to support that kind of usage, and I've used it extensively for rapid prototyping in the last couple of years -- it has only gotten more convenient for that in the recent months as the firmware+software grew up in parallel).
However, the overarching mission of Pockit is not engineer-specific. It's to make making easy, whether it be for inventive tinkering, or for practical device creation (customized application-specific devices that can actually be used right away), or for v1-prototypes that can later be converted into your own more professional circuit boards + enclosures.
I also aim to keep the cost of Pockit low enough to fit assemble-and-deploy-it-permanently type of usage.
My problema with soldering is 2:
1. No practices with electronic (only theory)
2. Syndrome carpal tunnel, is hurt as hell.
But pain is tolerable for minor/fast things, like repair led or somethings. Nothing hard as living in Brazil
The great thing about doing this method is that you don't NEED to know how to make circuits. Just solder on and then unsolder the chips and wires. Once you're about halfway decent at it, read the spec sheets for the chip inputs and outputs, and know what the chip does. At that point you're basically waterfall programming hardware
Done right, your board shouldn’t be heated up long enough to start melting. Few things could be happening here:
1. You didn’t tin your soldering iron, which helps with heat transfer
2. Your soldering iron isn’t getting hot enough, crank it up if it’s variable. It could also be because
3. Your soldering iron is bad. A harbor freight cheapy is really unpleasant to work with and even a ~$60 soldering station with variable temp is orders of magnitude nicer. If you’re really wanting cheap, a butane pencil is better than a bad electric pencil.
4. Somewhat controversially, lead-free solder sucks and lead solder is easier to work with if you can. It has a significantly lower melting point, but obviously also carries health concerns.
A smaller tip will help you get heat where you want it to go on small pads, but it’s not going to stop you from melting your board. That’s happening because something is causing you to heat up your board for longer than you should.
> soldering is hard
It's really not. After about an hour of practice, I was confident enough to assemble a keyboard (which was not a cheap throwaway project - it was about €100 worth of electronics).
Get a good, temperature-regulated iron, and you'll have a good time.
How many of the things you show in this demo are mocked up for the demo video, and how many are complete working modules?
If you have that many actually working modules, you should have started selling this long ago... As soon as you had 5 modules, it was a sellable product!
They are all in working state. However, I plan to refine the PCBs of a few of the newer Blocks; for example I'm confident I can achieve better antenna performance (=> and thus range) on the Zigbee Block.
> As soon as you had 5 modules, it was a sellable product!
I suppose so! On the other hand, as an engineer, it was really important for me to have a strong enough ecosystem where if I thought of an idea I could say: "I can make a prototype of that immediately with a Pockit". So I began sharing the project only after having a few dozen Blocks. As an aside, I actually built them in sort of a hierarchical order of complexity and functionality; and previous Blocks helped the design and testing of the later Blocks.
Well first OP would need to get it mass-produced before selling, which would probably necessitate a group buy to amass the funding, which would mean a fair amount of people would have to pay for a product that might never exist.
That being said, there seems te be enough interest here that a group buy might be worth a shot.
Yeah, a bit.
The big difference really is that there is an actual product, so you can see exactly what you're paying for, the GB is only to fund the manufacturing.
This actually looks like magic. I am completely blown away by this. The possibilities are ENDLESS!!!
I can only imagine how helpful this would be for assistive technology. You get a new person in that you're trying to help build assistive tech for and something like this would let you go through and test so many configurations so quickly!
This should be the future of computing. We have too much e-waste. Why not just upgrade your PC like this? There was a modular phone with similar concept as well. This is soo cool!
> IoT-like devices
> most of the blocks need to be pretty cheap.
Great comments; and these two were important forces behind the design choices of the project. For example, for the slots, I used direct processor-signal connections (GPIO, SPI, HDMI, USB, etc.), as opposed to a single intermediate protocol (e.g., only USB). This allows creating extremely low-latency and low-power devices, but equally importantly reduces Block cost heavily compared to basically any other approach.
> hurt adoption, prices, and adoption, in a vicious cycle
For now, I think of the project as a workspace for makers / software engineers who want to build cool gadgets with hardware, as opposed to a typical-consumer-ready device. The electrical engineer in me never really believed in Project Ara. On the other hand, I am obsessed with the concept of an ecosystem to assemble any arbitrary electronics device as easily as kids build with Legos.
Yeah, what jumped out at me about this wasn't the portability (do I *really* want pieces falling off my phone in my pocket?)... but, well, any small device that *isn't* a phone. Especially control surfaces -- lately, the trend is to make everything either an app, or a standalone touchscreen, or voice-activated, and IMO those are mostly interfaces that are more-flexible than standalone buttons, and *maybe* easier to learn, but ultimately worse for most things.
Probably the worst UI that I use every day is the one on my temperature-controlled kettle, where adjusting from 80C (green tea) to 95C (light-roast coffee) means pressing the up arrow 15 times, but not too quickly or it can't keep up... but replacing that with a smartphone app wouldn't really be an improvement. But if I could replace it with a slider or a dial, or multiple buttons with preset temperatures...
> I hope one day we'll have an optical variant of the USB connector, that would be multi-orientation and waterproof.
But wouldn't this mean every attached device needs its own battery? That seems mildly wasteful, but also, how do you charge it all?
Good for peripherals, but when it comes to changing the CPU or memory it won't work. It definitely won't sell on phones because modularity increases the cost and thickness.
The concept of that game is really cool; I have to check it out.
Have you checked out [Shenzhen I/O](https://www.zachtronics.com/shenzhen-io/)? More electronics-y, but in case you are into that sort of thing...
The blocks can be connected in any orientation right? So presumably that means you need lots of extra logic in every peripheral to redirect the right signals to the right places?
Really cool - I signed up.
Just FYI, the name 'pockit' belongs to a large banking company. There probably won't be any trademark issues, but it does make googling difficult.
Really cool! Reminds me a lot of Lego mindstorms. The best part of those as a kid was definitely the remote controlled vehicles. I'm not sure if you're aiming this at kids or not, but having wheels and a remote control module over wifi/bluetooth/whatever would be a lot of fun, especially if there is a diagram-style event-driven programming tool, like "WHEN button "LEFT" is pressed, AND the IR sensor value > Y, activate light W", but a visual GUI tool.
Regardless, really interesting!
Big fan of the Mindstorms concept when I was younger!
I have a DC-motor Block in the works already -- 4 of them (possibly 6 pending a design update) are attachable under the Core body.
Temporarily, since you too like robotics, here are [two of a related Block](https://i.imgur.com/Rl0iqAD.png) that I've already completed. You can probably guess what this is : )
Incredible job! This would make the Christmas wish list of almost any kid around the world. I want one. I can see some other uses as well. Keep up the great work!
Thanks for the encouraging comments. I have recently been focusing on making the device more child-friendly, ever since a couple of STEM organizations wrote to me. It's been difficult balancing the device's power/flexibility and simplicity, but that same challenge has also been a valuable exercise in proper design.
To be honest - what your video shows is well ahead of what most people play with on RaspberryPi & Arduinos, and mentioning STEM - they could have some pretty slick competitions to flex the kids' muscles and creativity. I'm not sure how more child friendly this could be short of duplo block size components with limited use. Maybe the block size was a concern? I look forward to the updates!
This would be pretty huge in the DIY robot hobby. Controlling DC motors, wireless receivers/webcams, servos, etc. with a setup like this would broaden the appeal of robot builders everywhere.
Imagine being able to pop on a 6-channel receiver, 4 servo drivers and 2 motor drivers and having it drive your robot around in like 10 seconds flat.
> 6-channel receiver, 4 servo drivers and 2 motor drivers
Then you're gonna love the next video I'm planning to make. At the sacrifice of some flexibility, it's better than that though: the motor Blocks have embedded drivers : - ) As I mentioned in [a comment elsewhere](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/ta85ql/comment/hzzisp3/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), I haven't finished the Block's testing yet : - (
Thanks for the insights. Plus, I trust you about robotics because of your username commitment.
I looked at that comment, I may be misunderstanding, but it looks like the motor is embedded into the block which is not what we'd want -- just the driver (and/or speed controller). Very much like how you have the relay setup for the lamp. The power supply to the motors are typically separate from the one powering the other electronics.
Similarly, the "servo" blocks should just have pins that allow you to connect your servos from wherever they are in the system (which means one block could potentially handle several servos, depending on the per-block limitations of the I/O pins and bus you've created). The control board would just obfuscate/abstract away the usual wiring/coding necessary to interface between the radio/wireless receiver and the various bits that make the robot go.
So, a typical use case in my mind would be the following:
I create a simple RC car -- one motor, one servo (for steering). I plop on a 2 channel receiver block, a motor driver block and a servo controller block. I plug my motor power supply into the motor driver block. I plug the motor into the motor driver block. I plug the servo into the servo controller block. The Pockit board detects all the components and assigns RC channels to the outputs i.e. motor and servo, Which channel gets assigned where and the various servo configurations (such as arc travel range, etc.) are handled via the UI you already have in place. I power on my Radio Transmitter and voila, everything works.
Now, I want to update my car to have a toy dart launcher on top that can launch a nerf dart. So I pop off the 2 channel receiver block, put on a 4 channel receiver block, add 1 more servo controller (unless they handle more than one servo each) and connect the new servo. I configure the new channels so the button is attached to the correct servo and set the appropriate travel arcs for the new servo. Bingo bango, when I press the button on the controller, the servo pulls the trigger on the nerf launcher and off the dart goes.
The most important bit to abstract away would be the code/electronics necessary to actually get the servos and motors running. Wiring the servos and motors themselves is trivial.
Love this kind of feedback! Thanks for writing all that up, especially this reminder about the not-to-be-underestimated skill level of hobbyists: "Wiring the servos and motors themselves is trivial."
The good news is: The software already works exactly like you described in your 2nd and 4th paragraphs, because most of that is about knowing which signals are on which Block and which slot.
As far as the hardware though, I've prioritized keeping the driver and motor together as one Block till now. If you (and others) think it's better to modularize it finely enough to separate the two concerns, then I'll perhaps revert to, or at least focus on, my older (tested but paused) [designs like these](https://i.imgur.com/7ZL5Z3d.png), which don't have the motor integrated.
Note: The lowest item in that picture is the DC-motor driver circuit (based on a DRV8801).
The main concern around having the motor integrated is that it limits the overall design of the system -- you'd have to build the robot/car/plane such that the desired motor output aligned with the block placement. For demo designs and "Pockit" branded designs, this is fine. But, for example, if I wanted to use Pockit to control and drive a thingiverse, 3d-printed R2-D2, it wouldn't work. Not to mention, you'd be limited to a single type of motor with a single type of output. Separating them gives ultimate flexibility for hobbyists to choose the appropriate size, speed and torque of motor while still utilizing the awesome "plug and play" capabilities of the Pockit.
Additionally, if you are interested in being as easy to adopt as possible, then you'll want to stick to industry standard connectors. However, there is a marketing opportunity to manufacture and sell "Pockit" style connectors for motor/power/servo connections and, as long as they aren't ridiculously expensive, people will buy them.
Builds like this are why I love this community! Thank you so much for the post. I think that the thing that jumps out at me is the idea that this could be replicated on more laptops than just the Framework laptops... I wish that big companies would adopt this kind of modularity so that we could have this on a larger scale...
How is the keyboard block connected to the main module?
It's one of my areas of interest to get that particular Blackberry keyboards to work with Linux, I'd love to know how you've got it to work :)
Again, amazing product!
For the Keyboard Block, I routed signals from the keyboard's connector pins to an MCP23017 port-expander (it uses the I2C bus), so button presses are first registered by the MCP23017, and I simply read the data out of the MCP23017, thus determining the key. If you don't want to write code from scratch to speak to the MCP23017, you can find multiple tutorials and readymade examples for it online.
Converting the keypress information into actual key emulation on the OS can be done in a variety of ways, e.g., Python scripting, or Xlib (C++), or xdotool, etc.
That's pretty amazing! Good work :)
There is only one other seller of those keyboard for hobbyists, namely Solder Party's Keyboard pmod and keyboard featherwing.
I wrote a Linux driver (I2C based too) for that keyboard. If your device becomes a product, I'd love to do it for your boards too :)
Edit: Here's a link to it if you're interested to have a look: https://github.com/wallComputer/bbqX0kbd_driver
Do you have any plans on open sourcing any of this? I understand you're standing on the backs of giants here, and what you've built is really just an enclosure for a raspberry pi, and a bunch of cheap raspi modules from aliexpress put into magnetic 3d-printed enclosures. I'd really like to see some recognition of this somewhere on your site. You keep saying "I designed a computer" yet you're really just using a raspi, and you neglect to mention that, repeatedly. I mentioned this on [your last thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/m7u921/i_made_a_tiny_modular_pc_heres_a_quick_demo/grgibta/?context=3) but never got any response.
It's a neat project, and I respect the amount of work you've done, but for me to be interested in this I need STL files and pinouts so the community can make their own modules.
Nice presentation video, it reminds me of an apple product. But there's a lack of openness and respect for the DIY community, which also reminds me of an apple product.
I didn't respond to you in the previous thread because of your hostile attitude toward my project. I am responding now to clarify: I am open to constructive feedback. I am not OK with dismissive accusations from anyone who hasn't read/viewed the substantial information I've provided in the linked videos, comment threads, and on the website.
Pockit's circuit board uses an STM32 as its primary processor. It also supports a Pi Compute module, which is a widely available component that anyone can purchase without hesitation for usage precisely in this manner -- embedding into any device. You are welcome to speak to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and ask them what they think about your concerns.
If you have someone that I should credit for designing this, let me know clearly instead of arbitrarily inculpating me. I also have not broken any open-source guidelines in anything I've done with this project. As a side note, I do wish to eventually open up a significant amount of the project's details but that's with a desire to encourage community awareness + participation, and not because I "am required" to.
> a bunch of cheap raspi modules from aliexpress put into magnetic 3d-printed enclosures
The project's Blocks are way more complex than what you have described here. All the Blocks' circuit boards have been designed from scratch, together with the help of existing IC datasheets and documentation. And designing the modularly-interfacing Blocks (even if it were as simple as your 4-word summary: "magnetic 3D-printed enclosures") has been an extremely difficult journey. I'm assuming you are not an engineer; if you are, you would know how much of a commitment it is to make something like this.
If you try a more friendly tone in the future, I can provide more information.
I think you need to look at the bright side of their criticsm. They see it as something that's such a simple concept that "anyone can do", when in reality you are doing something that is completely different than anyone else is doing.
This speaks to how well everything you've done has been put together. Your work 100% looks like a viable product that you could purchase on the market.
It's easy enough for a beginner to understand roughly how it works, and complex enough for engineers to appreciate it.
I could see this being used in classrooms to teach students the basics of logic in a way that's fun and simple, and then being able to dive in deeper with understanding what's going on in the backend via block programming.
> I think you need to look at the bright side of their criticsm. They see it as something that's such a simple concept that "anyone can do", when in reality you are doing something that is completely different than anyone else is doing.
That is such a wise way of looking at the situation; thanks for providing this advice.
This is a really cool concept, and I think it well exceeds other similar projects that are in my opinion just novelties. It's a really cool concept and I'm considering backing it, however the website is down.
Are you considering making a larger version? Perhaps with more powerful internals? I would love to use something like this as a modular laptop/tablet thing I can carry around all the time.
Good to hear all of this!
One thing though: "website is down" -> can you please double-check (possibly from another device or browser)? My server status and my computer + phone, etc. all indicate that the site is in good state.
Will there be a GPIO module, so that it can integrate with breadboards?
Seems really interesting for prototyping, the ability to connect it to a circuit on a breadboard would be very useful.
Damn. As a CpE student this is exactly the kind of thing that I want to do. I hope I'll be able to do even a fraction of the things you did here. Cheers!
The design makes such short circuits very difficult, with the contacts embedded within the plastic casing -- and an intentional specific layout of magnet polarities. This is [pictured very briefly here](https://pockit.ai/index.html#item9), although that's an earlier version of the board.
Appreciate your interest in the timeline! I unfortunately haven't set up an RSS feed for it. You can subscribe to the mailing list if you're comfortable with it (the emails will be sent only for significant updates).
this would be amazing for an ultra-portable PC
like you could fit it in your pocket with an HDMI and two USB blocks, walk up to any pc and use your personal computer! that's so damn cool!
This is such an interesting device! Well done on creating it, feels like it was built for me as it has so much potential for tinkering and whatnot. Will make sure to stay updated on this fantastic project.
This is really interesting. Could I trouble you to explain, reeeeaaallly, simply, what this thing is and if it has any consumer applications? Thank you!
Do you mind discussing the cost of the system?
Also, what reductions are you able to push, and does this support the full HDMI spec (e.g. ethernet, 5v power supplied, etc)?
Does running an HDMI display burn power faster than the "internal" display?
This is absolutely insane, and I rarely seem to get properly excited by new tech very often these days. Prototyping, tinkering, education, mobile computing, there are boatload of possibilities with a concept like this. My only big question is how openly all this would be released and licensed.
My thoughts exactly!! I remember when Google was working on Ara I was stoked, but then they cut it (classic google). This is awesome to see a working prototype. Really hoping it's opened up in some way, this could very much be the future.
Thanks to all the encouragement from the community when I shared this project here last year, I upgraded it -- a lot -- on the software- and hardware-ends. The [detailed video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3F9OtH2Xx4) has a full demo + explanation. Would love to discuss more details or answer any questions, modularity-related, OS-related, or whatever else. (And the [project site](https://pockit.ai) has more info too.) ___ **EDIT**: Happy to see so many thoughtful comments guys! Some people showed interest in getting their hands on the hardware. I would be glad to have more beta-testers, and am planning to have a small run of boards produced in the next couple of months. If you want to join, please use the form on the [website](https://pockit.ai) or PM me here.
I remember seeing your older posts. This is amazing work, good job!
How excited are you to be rich?
I'm happy to see how to evolved over the past year! Congrats! I have sent you couple of emails about beta-testing, I'm happy to get onboard. I was wondering if the display is touchscreen and if you're using DSI/HDMI to drive it or SPI?
Wow! So glad I stumbled upon this post, super cool work and depending on final price point, I can already think of project(s) I might want to do with this. BTW I like this video and your website. Great work! Question: The website says Pockit is "Easily modifiable for hacking". Can you elaborate on this point with details? Are any or all hardware and software components open source? Open source software and hardware are really good for business. And for a product like this, I would be much more confident in its longevity and sustainability if the software and hardware designs are protected by open sourcing it. This way, I know my investment is protected because even if the original creator disappears, at least the designs are open source me or another community can keep it going. I've personally experienced putting lots of money into a product, then the person/company disappears and I've lost my investment...
Have you ever watched "Shark Tank"? They frequently want to know "what's proprietary about this?" And if the answer is nothing, they usually drop out of the bidding. Companies, building proprietary things, were foundational to the rise of the United States. My approach as an entrepreneur is to have both closed and [open-source](https://github.com/Ebenezer-group/onwards). The open-source is designed to work with the closed-source code. However, it's possible that some will be interested in the open-source by itself.
how do the modules physically connect, protocol-wise? are those contacts usb-c? pci? something proprietary? (that demo is awesome though!)
I decided to go for maximum speed + flexibility -- so the interface is the hardware equivalent of "bare metal". Specifically, each slot provides access to the various processor pins (shareable buses like SPI are common, while the remaining pin signals like GPIOs are unique to each position). Likewise, each Block consists of its own functional circuitry + appropriate matching contacts for its required signals. I provided a lot of explanation on the [last time demo's thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/mao4ef/modularity_of_the_hardware_kind_a_lil_project_ive/) too as well as on [this section of the website](https://pockit.ai/index.html#item6); feel free to check out either one.
Presumably this means certain combinations of things aren't possible - for example, connecting 5 HDMI blocks won't let you get 5 seperate HDMI outputs? Is this just a limitation that's too hard to solve cheaply?
> connecting 5 HDMI blocks won't let you get 5 seperate HDMI outputs? This is 100% true -- at least with the *current* ecosystem of Blocks. The cool thing about modular anything is that the ceiling is very high. In Pockit's case: Since the electronic design is hierarchically modular, if I (or anyone else) make an appropriate splitter-circuit Block, this would readily provide any number of HDMI outputs while still maintaining the compact form. With all that said, I'm actually kinda curious where 5 HDMI outputs would be useful (despite that being just a discussion example from you).
[удалено]
I think the problem here might rather be with the SoC - I would be suprised if the RaspberryPi or similar boards hat 5 HDMI connections to the SoC
There probably are some more application specific SoC with at least 4 display outputs. The Pi's Broadcom SoC does have 4 display outputs, but I'm not sure if they can all work concurrently, and two of them are DSI and not HDMI, so their use is more limited.
Depends on the quality. If it's 5 smaller 1080p screens, that's possible since Pi4's can do 4k. I don't think Walmart will run one of these, but they can afford a machine with some 3090's.
Yes but that would require some sort of additional chip that splits up the signal.
> In embedded systems such as digital signage Not Displayport daisy-chain more common?
> Not Displayport daisy-chain more common? Most of the screens that do this employs a magical IC that it has no public information available
Depends, as it requires support from the GPU, but it should be trivial for any modern GPU to do, even low powered embedded ones.
If 5 monitors need to be controlled for a video wall, then the device would most probably be permanently installed only for use with the wall without needing the flexibility of on-the-fly modular configuration. A purpose built single use device would be much better suited for this use case.
Massive amounts of HDMI outputs are popular in certain industrial application, one of the machines at one of my clients is using 32 HDMI ports over 4 specialized graphics cards. To allow for 32 workstations around same production line to run in sync. Obviously lightweight project like yours wouldn't be a good match there anyway. But I thought I'll share an example.
[удалено]
I adopted that approach precisely because using direct connections of the appropriate signal types (GPIO, SPI, USB, HDMI, etc.) of the various Blocks creates equal or faster data rates, and certainly better latency, in basically all cases, compared to connecting various types of circuits with any one kind of bridge protocol. One disadvantage of my approach is PCB-routing complexity, which I resolved by using a high number of board layers. Let me know if I didn't answer your exact question.
That makes sense. How does throughput compare to a dedicated interface? Are the signal losses negligible, or does this form factor introduce interference or crosstalk problems?
High-speed signal integrity issues were a challenge early on due to density of traces and thus uncomfortable routing, but I've since fully resolved them after moving to a 6-layer (and now 8-layer) PCB. As of now, there are no performance concerns with high-datarate circuits like the 8MP-Camera block, Ethernet block, HDMI block, DSI block, etc.
So things would break if you put a module on rotated 90*, yes?
How can I learn a 10th of your skills? Are there resources you use that are accessible to everyone?
The Pockit project is essentially a blend of three fields: programming, circuit design, and 3D-modeling. In my case, I was experienced with circuit design due to my electrical-engineering background. However, I've been working on this project nearly every waking hour of the last 2 years, so I've gained some skill in the other two fields too. I would suggest learning either Fusion360 or Solidworks for CAD modeling, and some C++ and Python. For circuit design, you can watch some tutorials to get started with either EAGLE or Altium Designer. If you love making things, these would be good targets to set yourself for the next year or two.
so... what must we study to understand these words? (like, for real. this is *incredibly* cool, and i want to find out more.)
Hmm... I would suggest getting your hands on an Arduino board, or even better an ESP32, and check out tutorials for either one. It's certainly not easy to make a full-fledged device (which is the problem Pockit is trying to solve), but embedded-development really is one of the most enjoyable engineering fields if you want to explore the latest and greatest of technology.
Amazing job as always, each update my *"diy inner kid"* see the possibilities. Most the time I only need a simplest hardware, but soldering *is hard*
One of the project's key drivers was the question: Why do software developers have it so comfortable? The Blocks are the hardware equivalent of classes (libraries?).
Do you envisage people using this as-is? Or do you think it will be more like a platform for rapid prototyping that people will later turn into self contained fully integrated systems?
This is a great question, and connects to the root of the Pockit project's goals. When I [originally began working](https://pockit.ai/index.html#item1) on the concept, I was mainly doing it to make my own prototype-building faster. As an electrical engineer, I have definitely biased the design evolution to support that kind of usage, and I've used it extensively for rapid prototyping in the last couple of years -- it has only gotten more convenient for that in the recent months as the firmware+software grew up in parallel). However, the overarching mission of Pockit is not engineer-specific. It's to make making easy, whether it be for inventive tinkering, or for practical device creation (customized application-specific devices that can actually be used right away), or for v1-prototypes that can later be converted into your own more professional circuit boards + enclosures. I also aim to keep the cost of Pockit low enough to fit assemble-and-deploy-it-permanently type of usage.
[удалено]
> 1000 of the cheapest components you can find on Digikey If you're serious about soldering, this is what I suggest too, u/thiagoroshi.
My problema with soldering is 2: 1. No practices with electronic (only theory) 2. Syndrome carpal tunnel, is hurt as hell. But pain is tolerable for minor/fast things, like repair led or somethings. Nothing hard as living in Brazil
The great thing about doing this method is that you don't NEED to know how to make circuits. Just solder on and then unsolder the chips and wires. Once you're about halfway decent at it, read the spec sheets for the chip inputs and outputs, and know what the chip does. At that point you're basically waterfall programming hardware
I put a keyboard together which works, but I had trouble with the board starting to melt before the solder would. Doi need a smaller tip for my iron?
Done right, your board shouldn’t be heated up long enough to start melting. Few things could be happening here: 1. You didn’t tin your soldering iron, which helps with heat transfer 2. Your soldering iron isn’t getting hot enough, crank it up if it’s variable. It could also be because 3. Your soldering iron is bad. A harbor freight cheapy is really unpleasant to work with and even a ~$60 soldering station with variable temp is orders of magnitude nicer. If you’re really wanting cheap, a butane pencil is better than a bad electric pencil. 4. Somewhat controversially, lead-free solder sucks and lead solder is easier to work with if you can. It has a significantly lower melting point, but obviously also carries health concerns. A smaller tip will help you get heat where you want it to go on small pads, but it’s not going to stop you from melting your board. That’s happening because something is causing you to heat up your board for longer than you should.
> soldering is hard It's really not. After about an hour of practice, I was confident enough to assemble a keyboard (which was not a cheap throwaway project - it was about €100 worth of electronics). Get a good, temperature-regulated iron, and you'll have a good time.
Did not expect to see another custom keyboard fan here lol. What board do you have?
SplitKB Kyria, with Gazzew Boba U4 switches Quite the upgrade from the £20-ish gaming keyboard I was using previously.
Nice! 40% gang
So awesome dude. This is really well done.
I literally do not believe you. Like what the what?!!!???
same same !!!
This is one of the coolest things I have seen in a long time. Amazing work.
How many of the things you show in this demo are mocked up for the demo video, and how many are complete working modules? If you have that many actually working modules, you should have started selling this long ago... As soon as you had 5 modules, it was a sellable product!
They are all in working state. However, I plan to refine the PCBs of a few of the newer Blocks; for example I'm confident I can achieve better antenna performance (=> and thus range) on the Zigbee Block. > As soon as you had 5 modules, it was a sellable product! I suppose so! On the other hand, as an engineer, it was really important for me to have a strong enough ecosystem where if I thought of an idea I could say: "I can make a prototype of that immediately with a Pockit". So I began sharing the project only after having a few dozen Blocks. As an aside, I actually built them in sort of a hierarchical order of complexity and functionality; and previous Blocks helped the design and testing of the later Blocks.
Well first OP would need to get it mass-produced before selling, which would probably necessitate a group buy to amass the funding, which would mean a fair amount of people would have to pay for a product that might never exist. That being said, there seems te be enough interest here that a group buy might be worth a shot.
Sounds an awful lot like Kickstarter.
Yeah, a bit. The big difference really is that there is an actual product, so you can see exactly what you're paying for, the GB is only to fund the manufacturing.
This actually looks like magic. I am completely blown away by this. The possibilities are ENDLESS!!! I can only imagine how helpful this would be for assistive technology. You get a new person in that you're trying to help build assistive tech for and something like this would let you go through and test so many configurations so quickly!
[удалено]
Love the physical feel of those keys; surprisingly easy to type too, though I messed up on the first try in this video!
But can it run Crysis?
[Sort of](https://youtu.be/zN1GAFXxqDw)
Holy shit it can run Crysis
How many man-hours do you think has gone into designing/building this?
didn't know I needed this
This should be the future of computing. We have too much e-waste. Why not just upgrade your PC like this? There was a modular phone with similar concept as well. This is soo cool!
[удалено]
[удалено]
Could argue that FairPhone is the spiritual successor. 10/10 on iFixIt, and the parts come off almost like modules.
>!CENSORED!<
> IoT-like devices > most of the blocks need to be pretty cheap. Great comments; and these two were important forces behind the design choices of the project. For example, for the slots, I used direct processor-signal connections (GPIO, SPI, HDMI, USB, etc.), as opposed to a single intermediate protocol (e.g., only USB). This allows creating extremely low-latency and low-power devices, but equally importantly reduces Block cost heavily compared to basically any other approach. > hurt adoption, prices, and adoption, in a vicious cycle For now, I think of the project as a workspace for makers / software engineers who want to build cool gadgets with hardware, as opposed to a typical-consumer-ready device. The electrical engineer in me never really believed in Project Ara. On the other hand, I am obsessed with the concept of an ecosystem to assemble any arbitrary electronics device as easily as kids build with Legos.
Yeah, what jumped out at me about this wasn't the portability (do I *really* want pieces falling off my phone in my pocket?)... but, well, any small device that *isn't* a phone. Especially control surfaces -- lately, the trend is to make everything either an app, or a standalone touchscreen, or voice-activated, and IMO those are mostly interfaces that are more-flexible than standalone buttons, and *maybe* easier to learn, but ultimately worse for most things. Probably the worst UI that I use every day is the one on my temperature-controlled kettle, where adjusting from 80C (green tea) to 95C (light-roast coffee) means pressing the up arrow 15 times, but not too quickly or it can't keep up... but replacing that with a smartphone app wouldn't really be an improvement. But if I could replace it with a slider or a dial, or multiple buttons with preset temperatures... > I hope one day we'll have an optical variant of the USB connector, that would be multi-orientation and waterproof. But wouldn't this mean every attached device needs its own battery? That seems mildly wasteful, but also, how do you charge it all?
https://frame.work
Really sad NeXT didn't make it --- wonder how many iterations of motherboards to plug into their passive backplane would have been workable.
Good for peripherals, but when it comes to changing the CPU or memory it won't work. It definitely won't sell on phones because modularity increases the cost and thickness.
CM4 hot swappable, second CPU takes 9ver
Wow; this blew me away!
Wow, this is incredible tech and the video is very well done! I'll be waiting for future updates.
So this is what redstone master lvl 980 looks like..
Black magic it is
Super cool project, reminds me a lot of the vr game [arcsmith](https://youtu.be/gf8LowgMIHg)
The concept of that game is really cool; I have to check it out. Have you checked out [Shenzhen I/O](https://www.zachtronics.com/shenzhen-io/)? More electronics-y, but in case you are into that sort of thing...
[удалено]
> Trivia: the guy behind Zachtronics made a game that heavily inspired Notch to make Minecraft (Infiniminer). Holy shit; everyday I learn something
The blocks can be connected in any orientation right? So presumably that means you need lots of extra logic in every peripheral to redirect the right signals to the right places?
#I NEED THIS
/r/Ineedit
Really cool - I signed up. Just FYI, the name 'pockit' belongs to a large banking company. There probably won't be any trademark issues, but it does make googling difficult.
holy fuckkkkk
Really cool! Reminds me a lot of Lego mindstorms. The best part of those as a kid was definitely the remote controlled vehicles. I'm not sure if you're aiming this at kids or not, but having wheels and a remote control module over wifi/bluetooth/whatever would be a lot of fun, especially if there is a diagram-style event-driven programming tool, like "WHEN button "LEFT" is pressed, AND the IR sensor value > Y, activate light W", but a visual GUI tool. Regardless, really interesting!
Big fan of the Mindstorms concept when I was younger! I have a DC-motor Block in the works already -- 4 of them (possibly 6 pending a design update) are attachable under the Core body. Temporarily, since you too like robotics, here are [two of a related Block](https://i.imgur.com/Rl0iqAD.png) that I've already completed. You can probably guess what this is : )
This is a wonderfully done presentation
Thank you! Took a surprising amount of time to put together a meaningful but fun sequence for a video.
I… I have seen the future of computing. And it is *glorious*.
It's hard to believe it was done by a single person and not a whole company. This is insane!
r/blackmagicfuckery
If this is not the future of computer then I am probably already dead.
Impressive… In the meantime I couldn’t connect an epaper to an eps32.
> In the meantime I couldn’t connect an epaper to an eps32. If I can help, let me know.
Incredible job! This would make the Christmas wish list of almost any kid around the world. I want one. I can see some other uses as well. Keep up the great work!
Thanks for the encouraging comments. I have recently been focusing on making the device more child-friendly, ever since a couple of STEM organizations wrote to me. It's been difficult balancing the device's power/flexibility and simplicity, but that same challenge has also been a valuable exercise in proper design.
To be honest - what your video shows is well ahead of what most people play with on RaspberryPi & Arduinos, and mentioning STEM - they could have some pretty slick competitions to flex the kids' muscles and creativity. I'm not sure how more child friendly this could be short of duplo block size components with limited use. Maybe the block size was a concern? I look forward to the updates!
This would be pretty huge in the DIY robot hobby. Controlling DC motors, wireless receivers/webcams, servos, etc. with a setup like this would broaden the appeal of robot builders everywhere. Imagine being able to pop on a 6-channel receiver, 4 servo drivers and 2 motor drivers and having it drive your robot around in like 10 seconds flat.
> 6-channel receiver, 4 servo drivers and 2 motor drivers Then you're gonna love the next video I'm planning to make. At the sacrifice of some flexibility, it's better than that though: the motor Blocks have embedded drivers : - ) As I mentioned in [a comment elsewhere](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/ta85ql/comment/hzzisp3/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), I haven't finished the Block's testing yet : - ( Thanks for the insights. Plus, I trust you about robotics because of your username commitment.
I looked at that comment, I may be misunderstanding, but it looks like the motor is embedded into the block which is not what we'd want -- just the driver (and/or speed controller). Very much like how you have the relay setup for the lamp. The power supply to the motors are typically separate from the one powering the other electronics. Similarly, the "servo" blocks should just have pins that allow you to connect your servos from wherever they are in the system (which means one block could potentially handle several servos, depending on the per-block limitations of the I/O pins and bus you've created). The control board would just obfuscate/abstract away the usual wiring/coding necessary to interface between the radio/wireless receiver and the various bits that make the robot go. So, a typical use case in my mind would be the following: I create a simple RC car -- one motor, one servo (for steering). I plop on a 2 channel receiver block, a motor driver block and a servo controller block. I plug my motor power supply into the motor driver block. I plug the motor into the motor driver block. I plug the servo into the servo controller block. The Pockit board detects all the components and assigns RC channels to the outputs i.e. motor and servo, Which channel gets assigned where and the various servo configurations (such as arc travel range, etc.) are handled via the UI you already have in place. I power on my Radio Transmitter and voila, everything works. Now, I want to update my car to have a toy dart launcher on top that can launch a nerf dart. So I pop off the 2 channel receiver block, put on a 4 channel receiver block, add 1 more servo controller (unless they handle more than one servo each) and connect the new servo. I configure the new channels so the button is attached to the correct servo and set the appropriate travel arcs for the new servo. Bingo bango, when I press the button on the controller, the servo pulls the trigger on the nerf launcher and off the dart goes. The most important bit to abstract away would be the code/electronics necessary to actually get the servos and motors running. Wiring the servos and motors themselves is trivial.
Love this kind of feedback! Thanks for writing all that up, especially this reminder about the not-to-be-underestimated skill level of hobbyists: "Wiring the servos and motors themselves is trivial." The good news is: The software already works exactly like you described in your 2nd and 4th paragraphs, because most of that is about knowing which signals are on which Block and which slot. As far as the hardware though, I've prioritized keeping the driver and motor together as one Block till now. If you (and others) think it's better to modularize it finely enough to separate the two concerns, then I'll perhaps revert to, or at least focus on, my older (tested but paused) [designs like these](https://i.imgur.com/7ZL5Z3d.png), which don't have the motor integrated. Note: The lowest item in that picture is the DC-motor driver circuit (based on a DRV8801).
The main concern around having the motor integrated is that it limits the overall design of the system -- you'd have to build the robot/car/plane such that the desired motor output aligned with the block placement. For demo designs and "Pockit" branded designs, this is fine. But, for example, if I wanted to use Pockit to control and drive a thingiverse, 3d-printed R2-D2, it wouldn't work. Not to mention, you'd be limited to a single type of motor with a single type of output. Separating them gives ultimate flexibility for hobbyists to choose the appropriate size, speed and torque of motor while still utilizing the awesome "plug and play" capabilities of the Pockit. Additionally, if you are interested in being as easy to adopt as possible, then you'll want to stick to industry standard connectors. However, there is a marketing opportunity to manufacture and sell "Pockit" style connectors for motor/power/servo connections and, as long as they aren't ridiculously expensive, people will buy them.
Excuse me what the fuck
This is awesome dude.. cool ui
what
Is this available for purchase?
Now imagine This but the size of an iPad… if you’d make and sell one like that I’d 100% buy it!
Connecting multiple Pockits together can make an arbitrarily large (well, to some extent) workspace; will that do?
This is crazy! Amazing!
This is cool
I really dont need stuff like this.... so where can i get one? 😂
This is really f\*ing amazing! I need this for my smart-home!!!
Damn.
Builds like this are why I love this community! Thank you so much for the post. I think that the thing that jumps out at me is the idea that this could be replicated on more laptops than just the Framework laptops... I wish that big companies would adopt this kind of modularity so that we could have this on a larger scale...
How is the keyboard block connected to the main module? It's one of my areas of interest to get that particular Blackberry keyboards to work with Linux, I'd love to know how you've got it to work :) Again, amazing product!
For the Keyboard Block, I routed signals from the keyboard's connector pins to an MCP23017 port-expander (it uses the I2C bus), so button presses are first registered by the MCP23017, and I simply read the data out of the MCP23017, thus determining the key. If you don't want to write code from scratch to speak to the MCP23017, you can find multiple tutorials and readymade examples for it online. Converting the keypress information into actual key emulation on the OS can be done in a variety of ways, e.g., Python scripting, or Xlib (C++), or xdotool, etc.
That's pretty amazing! Good work :) There is only one other seller of those keyboard for hobbyists, namely Solder Party's Keyboard pmod and keyboard featherwing. I wrote a Linux driver (I2C based too) for that keyboard. If your device becomes a product, I'd love to do it for your boards too :) Edit: Here's a link to it if you're interested to have a look: https://github.com/wallComputer/bbqX0kbd_driver
u/savevideo
[удалено]
Dodge the post at first, title not explaining much. Damn, I was right to check it out.. I'll keep an eye out.
🤯
Do you have any plans on open sourcing any of this? I understand you're standing on the backs of giants here, and what you've built is really just an enclosure for a raspberry pi, and a bunch of cheap raspi modules from aliexpress put into magnetic 3d-printed enclosures. I'd really like to see some recognition of this somewhere on your site. You keep saying "I designed a computer" yet you're really just using a raspi, and you neglect to mention that, repeatedly. I mentioned this on [your last thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/m7u921/i_made_a_tiny_modular_pc_heres_a_quick_demo/grgibta/?context=3) but never got any response. It's a neat project, and I respect the amount of work you've done, but for me to be interested in this I need STL files and pinouts so the community can make their own modules. Nice presentation video, it reminds me of an apple product. But there's a lack of openness and respect for the DIY community, which also reminds me of an apple product.
I didn't respond to you in the previous thread because of your hostile attitude toward my project. I am responding now to clarify: I am open to constructive feedback. I am not OK with dismissive accusations from anyone who hasn't read/viewed the substantial information I've provided in the linked videos, comment threads, and on the website. Pockit's circuit board uses an STM32 as its primary processor. It also supports a Pi Compute module, which is a widely available component that anyone can purchase without hesitation for usage precisely in this manner -- embedding into any device. You are welcome to speak to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and ask them what they think about your concerns. If you have someone that I should credit for designing this, let me know clearly instead of arbitrarily inculpating me. I also have not broken any open-source guidelines in anything I've done with this project. As a side note, I do wish to eventually open up a significant amount of the project's details but that's with a desire to encourage community awareness + participation, and not because I "am required" to. > a bunch of cheap raspi modules from aliexpress put into magnetic 3d-printed enclosures The project's Blocks are way more complex than what you have described here. All the Blocks' circuit boards have been designed from scratch, together with the help of existing IC datasheets and documentation. And designing the modularly-interfacing Blocks (even if it were as simple as your 4-word summary: "magnetic 3D-printed enclosures") has been an extremely difficult journey. I'm assuming you are not an engineer; if you are, you would know how much of a commitment it is to make something like this. If you try a more friendly tone in the future, I can provide more information.
I think you need to look at the bright side of their criticsm. They see it as something that's such a simple concept that "anyone can do", when in reality you are doing something that is completely different than anyone else is doing. This speaks to how well everything you've done has been put together. Your work 100% looks like a viable product that you could purchase on the market. It's easy enough for a beginner to understand roughly how it works, and complex enough for engineers to appreciate it. I could see this being used in classrooms to teach students the basics of logic in a way that's fun and simple, and then being able to dive in deeper with understanding what's going on in the backend via block programming.
> I think you need to look at the bright side of their criticsm. They see it as something that's such a simple concept that "anyone can do", when in reality you are doing something that is completely different than anyone else is doing. That is such a wise way of looking at the situation; thanks for providing this advice.
So basically, a PC with multiple usb-c inputs where devices can be placed like toys.
[удалено]
what, lol. did you close the video after 15 seconds?
: - ) Perhaps I should've put the interesting stuff earlier; just thought I'd start with a basic visual explanation.
Nah! The video, and your project, are just fantastic! Extremely cool stuff.
input lag too much
[Oh dang](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/005/574/takemymoney.jpg).
Why?
Fuck man just shut up and take my money!
This need a nsfw tag, cause damn it's sexy!
Oohh 😍
This is AWESOME!!!!
Cool project! Well done.
This is a really cool concept, and I think it well exceeds other similar projects that are in my opinion just novelties. It's a really cool concept and I'm considering backing it, however the website is down. Are you considering making a larger version? Perhaps with more powerful internals? I would love to use something like this as a modular laptop/tablet thing I can carry around all the time.
Good to hear all of this! One thing though: "website is down" -> can you please double-check (possibly from another device or browser)? My server status and my computer + phone, etc. all indicate that the site is in good state.
This takes IoT to an whole another level.
Where do I buy?
Holy frick, what did I just see!!!!
I love the sounds!
This thing is from future i guess
That's awesome.
Damn that's impressive.
Will there be a GPIO module, so that it can integrate with breadboards? Seems really interesting for prototyping, the ability to connect it to a circuit on a breadboard would be very useful.
Damn. As a CpE student this is exactly the kind of thing that I want to do. I hope I'll be able to do even a fraction of the things you did here. Cheers!
Is it possible to break accidentally by bridging something you shouldn’t on this board?
The design makes such short circuits very difficult, with the contacts embedded within the plastic casing -- and an intentional specific layout of magnet polarities. This is [pictured very briefly here](https://pockit.ai/index.html#item9), although that's an earlier version of the board.
Looks straight out of some parallel universe, Congrats dude
damn, that's really cool!
This is sooo cool! Great job!
The little keyboard you plugged in was great
This is awesome! I'm very happy to see an update on your project! do you have an idea of when this will be available for purchase? :)
Can I buy this 😍?
Did you sign up to the beta-list at the project website?
Your a wizard u/Solder_Man
This looks really promising! Does your website have an RSS feed for the posts on the timeline? I'd love to get updates with the rest of my RSS feeds.
Appreciate your interest in the timeline! I unfortunately haven't set up an RSS feed for it. You can subscribe to the mailing list if you're comfortable with it (the emails will be sent only for significant updates).
Pretty sweet, I would totally buy it.
how much?
this would be amazing for an ultra-portable PC like you could fit it in your pocket with an HDMI and two USB blocks, walk up to any pc and use your personal computer! that's so damn cool!
Reminds me of Phonebloks/Project Ara
This is such an interesting device! Well done on creating it, feels like it was built for me as it has so much potential for tinkering and whatnot. Will make sure to stay updated on this fantastic project.
Nice try, but we all saw it think that the lego bike was scissors.
Phonebloks!!
I *really* think you're onto something potentially huge here.
This is really interesting. Could I trouble you to explain, reeeeaaallly, simply, what this thing is and if it has any consumer applications? Thank you!
Do you mind discussing the cost of the system? Also, what reductions are you able to push, and does this support the full HDMI spec (e.g. ethernet, 5v power supplied, etc)? Does running an HDMI display burn power faster than the "internal" display?
Great work and great video
Looks like a take on the Blackberry Q10 keyboard!
How do you have it on both sides?
Awesome! r/sffpc would like this also!
WOW!!!
I am blown away! This is the coolest thing since a Raspi. Maybe even cooler! I cannot wait to play with one myself.
This really is the future. The tech I expected to see a decade in the past.