CamJam Edukit 2 Launches at PiWars

Today the CamJam Edukit 2 is being launched at the first Cambridge Raspberry Jam PiWars event. I’ll be judging the smallest robot and the best non-competing robot categories at PiWars, but today’s blog is about the kit.

This is the second kit in the series, which adds some sensors (temperature, light and PIR) into the bundle. The full kit contents is shown and described below.

CamJam Edukit 2 sensors

What’s in the Kit?

• A 400 point bread board including dual power rails
• Immersable DS18B20 temperature sensor
• Light Dependent Resistor (LDR)
• Passive InfraRed (PIR) sensor
• Piezo buzzer
• 4 male-male blue jumper wires
• 10 male-female black jumper wires (I’d have liked more colour variety)
• 2 x 330 Ohm resistors (for the LEDs)
• 1 x 4.7 kOhm resistor (for the DS18B20)
• 1 x 10mm red LED
• 1 x 10mm blue LED
• 1 x 1uF electrolytic capacitor
• A nice tin to keep it all in

There’s also a set of downloadable worksheets that walks you through example Python code showing how to use each of the components.

You could use it to…

• Make a burglar alarm for your bedroom.
• Switch on an LED when it gets dark.
• Have an alarm go off when it’s freezing outside.
• Test whether the light really does go off in the fridge when you shut the door.

What’s The Best Part?

Mike and Tim, the organisers of CamJam, have teamed up with Jamie from The Pi Hut to create this second Edukit. If you add up the cost of buying all these parts yourself, you’d be looking at something like at least…

• £2-4 for the breadboard
• 50p for the buzzer
• £3 for the PIR
• £2 for the DS18B20
• £1-2 for the breadboarding jumper wires
• 50p for the LEDs
• 50p for the resistors
• £1 for the tin

…and that’s if you know where to look for well-priced bits.

The good news here is that, somehow, they’ve managed to come up with a retail price of just £7 for the lot.

I think this is an incredible effort and an awesome price. Add in the fact that each one sold helps to secure the future of the fabulous Cambridge Jam (CamJam), and, in my judges opinion we have a winner!