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supermechanical.bsky.social
Supermechanical
@supermechanical.bsky.social
32 followers 2 following 34 posts
Making instruments for makers. Pickup is a sensor power tool:
https://kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/pickup
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supermechanical.bsky.social
Update on Pickup—putting the final touches on development and preparing for production. blog.supermechanical.com/2025/09/30/m...
A chick standing with a Pickup prototype. Printed case with beautiful MJF texture.
September 30, 2025 at 8:10 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
Got a brood of new Pickup alpha testers.
A sleeping chick between Pickup and Twine environmental sensors.
September 2, 2025 at 10:54 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
Pickup prototype on top of insulated cooler.
May 29, 2025 at 3:20 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
What better way to test new database code than using Pickup to check whether popsicles will stay frozen in my cooler for the afterschool party? Trying to prove that dry ice won't be needed.
Pickup graph widget showing temperature dropping to freezing and holding the temperature for several hours.
May 29, 2025 at 2:47 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
Gifts in the mail! We're adjusting from injection molding to MJF printed parts. These can't do the same level of detail so these prints are helping me tune things, but they look great! Additive manufacturing has come far. blog.supermechanical.com/2025/05/12/a...
Box filled with MJF printed prototype parts for Pickup Kid smiles holding a real Pickup
May 27, 2025 at 4:27 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
Measuring fruit offgassing with Pickup's VOC/particulate cartridge.
Bowl of bananas, apple and a mango next to a Pickup VOC/particulate sensor.
April 23, 2025 at 6:50 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
Pickup getting some air. Testing lenses for the spectral cart in outdoor light.
Pickup board and spectral cart testing outside on a rainy day.
March 28, 2025 at 6:42 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
Testing Pickup distance sensor carts — bouncing lasers off that far wall.
Distance sensor boards in a Pickup on a tripod, being tested against a wall.
February 25, 2025 at 10:45 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
Assembled spectral sensor, plugged into a preproduction Pickup! Got color sensing working, though it's still uncalibrated.
Spectral sensor cartridge assembled and plugged into a prototype Pickup environmental monitor. Testing color recognition on the (uncalibrated) spectral sensor. Reads a PCB as green.
February 18, 2025 at 3:38 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
First samples of our sensor cartridge boards are done! Cases are being printed as I type.
Circuitboard for CO2/humidity sensor cartridge for Pickup environmental monitor
January 24, 2025 at 7:17 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
It's neat that contract manufacturing lets you make products without a lot of experience. But making innovative products requires that first-hand experience. Here's how hard it is.

blog.supermechanical.com/2024/12/23/y...
Running sample parts at an injection molder in Maine to get the right color and translucency. Prepping the injection molding press for a sample run.
January 9, 2025 at 3:48 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
It's hard to make hardware in America when you're small. How we're making the supply chain for our environmental monitor:
blog.supermechanical.com/2024/12/23/t...
Demolding injection molded handles for our thermometer.
December 31, 2024 at 6:19 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
Special delivery! Got samples of an unreleased sensor. 1% the size of comparable sensors, which makes it easy to fit into a cartridge for our pocket-sized environmental monitor.
An anti-static package containing sensor samples.
August 28, 2024 at 10:45 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
That feeling when you finally hold the first physical instance of the thing you've been working on for a year.

This is why hardware development is hard to quit!

blog.supermechanical.com/2024/07/30/s...
An engineer holding the Pickup data logger he's been developing, finally in assembled form with a case and everything.
August 2, 2024 at 2:58 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
Making injection-molded parts is not as hard as you think, as long as you can swallow laying down a lot of money. I wrote about the grind as I finish up the molds for Pickup:
blog.supermechanical.com/2024/07/01/a...
Diagrams of injection mold flow and draft from a moldability report. Exciting.
July 8, 2024 at 9:20 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
A lot of money was spent. New Pickup project update:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/sup...
Cross section in CAD of the Pickup environmental monitor.
July 3, 2024 at 9:39 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
We got production candidate circuitboards for Pickup! Nearly there.
blog.supermechanical.com/2024/05/14/m...
Final candidate Pickup PCBs. Need only a few tweaks.
June 13, 2024 at 6:20 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
Big pads, little component. That's why you prototype the process. (From the Pickup environmental data logger we're manufacturing.)
Little baby chip trying to fit into adult pads on a PCB.
May 3, 2024 at 2:08 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
Boards spitting out data to MQTT. This goes to your friendly Pickup dashboard, but you can also tap into the stream directly or route it to your own broker—no locked down ecosystem here.

Read the latest development update for our modular data logger: blog.supermechanical.com/.../09/the-s...
MQTT client reading data stream from the (in-development) Pickup data logger.
April 1, 2024 at 7:54 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
These are about a third of the Pickup case iterations. Latest Kickstarter update provides an inside view on making hardware.
www.kickstarter.com/projects/sup...
Six printed iterations of the Pickup data logger's case, in development.
March 27, 2024 at 4:49 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
Got some Pickup component samples. It's not just Amazon that likes to pack tiny things in large boxes.
Can you spot what was even shipped to me? Big box, tiny inserts.
February 16, 2024 at 8:17 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
Time to make the donuts. (Or, a batch of Pickup prototypes.)

Latest update: www.kickstarter.com/projects/sup...
8 Pickup prototype boards to assemble.
February 2, 2024 at 5:41 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
"However, the only one of the big four Matter platforms that supports buttons right now is Apple Home." www.theverge.com/24043060/sma...
Meta: Legs are coming.
January 21, 2024 at 10:35 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
Bathing in radiation

#Pickup #Kickstarter
UV curing a printed prototype
January 19, 2024 at 9:59 PM
supermechanical.bsky.social
Pickup v4 proto boards, populated. Any real board is beautiful in my eyes, but the production boards will be prettier.

(This is actually a month old; catching up on posting, because I love to Post.)

www.kickstarter.com/projects/sup...

#buildaboard #hardware #kickstarter #hacking #iot
Pickup data logger prototype PCBs, side one Pickup data logger prototype PCBs, side two
January 11, 2024 at 9:27 PM