900 webcams just arrived, and we are in the midst of final assembly for the 974 Desktop Spectrometry Kits ($35 reward; the remaining webcams should be here soon). What's more, the night before last, all of our foldable mini-spectrometers shipped out from Portland, OR. We expect to ship the first 900 desktop kits tomorrow.

Thanks for your patience -- we're doing our best to assure that these arrive before Christmas, and we think for US buyers that should work out. For international orders, it's harder to tell.

Final instructions for the Desktop Spectrometry Kit

We've also posted a PDF of the final assembly instructions for the "DSK", which is shipping in each kit. It can also be used to build your own (all open source, all the time!), assuming you can find a webcam that will fit in a given spectrometer box, and that you cut your own imaging slit (not hard!). 

Spectral Workbench updates + iOS and Android

If you've used Spectral Workbench recently, you may have noticed the frenetic pace of changes over the past week. Wholly revised interfaces such as the above front-page screenshot, as well as a vastly improved (but still in-progress) mobile interface for the site have accompanied bugfixes and other revisions. Give it a browse!

One big improvement is that on mobile devices which lack the live video API our mobile site uses, we are automatically directing users to upload an image of a spectrum, and prompting them to do so with their native camera app. Until more mobile browsers support the MediaStream webcam API (as Opera Mobile does), this will allow anyone on Android or iOS 6+ to use the mobile webapp. We are also taking the first steps in developing a native iOS app to enable live capture, but we've found the native camera app technique to work fairly well.

Read more about this here: http://publiclaboratory.org/notes/warren/12-13-2012/massive-updates-spectral-workbench

Now accepting preorders

Finally, we are accepting preorders for a February shipment of post-Kickstarter Desktop Spectrometry Kits. We are setting the final retail price at $40 each. Reserve one now!

http://shop.breadpig.com/products/desktop-spectrometry-kit - $40
http://shop.breadpig.com/products/mini-fold-up-spectrometer - $10

Design sketches for the mobile spectrometer attachment

One more thing! We're starting to move on the $65 mobile spectrometers -- the rigid plastic version of the paper one we just shipped. Check out the sketches and as always, get involved at PublicLaboratory.org!

Things are humming along! Fellow Public Lab staff member Mathew Lippincott has been up to his elbows in foldable paper spectrometers out in Portland OR for the past week or two, and here in Somerville MA, we are preparing for our own big assembly of desktop spectrometry kits. Some of you may have been following our progress at PublicLaboratory.org, but for the rest of you, I know you're eager to see our progress. Here are some photos and other updates, including a look at our super-hot newly redesigned spectrometer kit at the bottom! Apologies for slow responses to your messages and comments; please bear with us as we get these rewards out the door. 

Foldable spectrometers

Mathew spent a lot of time cutting up DVDs, which will be shipping with your foldable spectrometers. I get to do this tomorrow. After extensive testing, DVDs have been shown to be as good or better than purpose-made gratings. 

Assembly instructions with DVDs taped to them.

Lasercut spectrometers ready to be folded up by you.

This is what you'll be receiving shortly if you selected the foldable spectrometer reward!

A partially assembled spectrometer prototype:

DIY Spectrometry Kits

The black paper inserts, conduit boxes, and other parts have been steadily flowing into our workspace in Somerville (the Pirateship). The inserts are now being lasercut, and we've put a call out for folks to volunteer packing boxes in exchange for free pizza and spectrometers! At this point the only thing missing is the webcam shipment. Fingers crossed for this to arrive in the next few days!

The 800+ lbs of aluminum conduit boxes which are our new spectrometer enclosures were the most dramatic:

Finally, we stickered a few with our new labels, assembled final packaging, and did a quick photo shoot. Gorgeous!

Hello all! I know we've been a bit quiet but don't worry -- we've been moving ahead full steam with ordering bulk parts, refining designs, and kicking off lots of exciting new research on the new Public Lab spectrometry mailing list (join now by checking "plots-spectrometry" on this page. Ideas and plans have been posted for ultraviolet spectrometer mods, a flame spectrometer for soil analysis, a carbon arc setup for vaporizing samples (!!!) and much more. Remember -- we're an open source community, not a corporation, which means you can join in and contribute to the design of these devices even before they're assembled and shipped!

Packaging and assembly

We've gone out of our way to find an aluminum conduit box for the DIY Kits ($35 model) instead of the nasty PVC boxes which are also full of fire retardant. Soon, 1500 will be headed our way in a boat. See progress on the kit here.

We also ordered boxes and are doing basic packaging design, as seen below; we want these to be basic but nice. Here, see 1500 boxes clogging traffic behind our workspace in Somerville:

Foldable Mini-spectrometer

The foldable design is shipping first, and so we've spent the most time on this design up front. Eight versions in and we're really looking at a pretty finished product which we've tested and are confident with. You can download the design right now, print it, and try it out -- but the ones we'll be mailing will be on stiff matte black card paper and will have lasercut imaging slits.

The above is the foldable one assembled temporarily with rubber bands -- it's a bit wrinkly from being carried around too much in my bike bag. Don't worry -- the final one will be sturdier and nicer-looking. That's more or less it for now; we'll keep you up to date as things get closer to shipping!

Hi all! As you probably noticed, we finished up with a great last push and broke $110k last Friday. We've been scrambling to calculate how many we need to ship of each type, get bulk quotes for the final count, and finding suppliers for the last few items. Things are looking great and we at Public Lab want to thank you one more time for your support!

Spectral Workbench API planning

Today I jotted down a preliminary API overview; this will form the skeleton of the Spectral App Platform. We hope to have a test "sandbox console" to try this out in the next few weeks, but you can already use a standard JavaScript console (like Firebug). We are brainstorming what kinds of functions will be useful in the proposed API. Take a look and join in:

http://publiclaboratory.org/wiki/spectral-workbench-api

Continuing tests on PublicLaboratory.org

Public Lab contributors have been posting a variety of exciting new research -- detailing flame emission setups which can identify calcium, iron, sodium, and potentially mercury. New tests with UV lights show noticeable fluorescence, and an atmospheric spectrum by Liz Barry shows clear atmospheric absorption lines for oxygen and water:

Design files and collaboration

Design files are being posted, refined, and improved -- keep in mind that PublicLaboratory.org is a collaborative open source community, and that you will not only be able to watch these design progress, but you can join in!

• http://publiclaboratory.org/notes/warren/10-10-2012/first-draft-vector-files-foldable-mini-spectrometer
• http://publiclaboratory.org/notes/warren/10-9-2012/spectrometry-kit-paper-insert-design-sketches

Hi, all! Late last night we crossed $100k, 1000%, and 1500 backers, so woohoo! That means we'll be developing an API so you can create your own spectral analysis "apps". The first step of this will be a simple macro scripting language at SpectralWorkbench.org -- we'll be doing a beta soonish and will be publishing some documentation along with it. 

Also -- for those of you who missed it, we passed our iOS threshold weeks ago, so we are definitely doing an iOS app.

This campaign has been super exciting and with only 30 hours left, it would be great to get a final jolt of new backers. Every dollar helps keep the Public Lab nonprofit afloat! Please consider submitting this project to some blogs, for example: 

• blog.makezine.com/contribute/
• boingboing.net/suggest.html
• wired.com/about/feedback/

Thanks again,

Jeff & Public Lab