$39 STEMtera vs $25 Alice Mini

Community Products and Services
1

Hi All,
Two years ago I made an offer of selling my sleeping beauty 1284P board to this forum members for $9. I received positive feedback.
Today I would like to do it again, but on a different product, Alice Mini.

The Alice Mini is the newest member of the Alice family, a line of Arduino compatible breadboard for Academia.

Arduino breadboards have gained momentum recently on Kickstarter, several campaigns were all doing very well.
I don't know the exact reason, the circuits are all standard and nothing new, maybe they reduce messy wiring and offer tutorials, it's just my guess.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stemtera/stemtera-breadboard-arduino-compatible-built-in-br?ref=nav_search

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/breadbro/breadbro/description

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jeffshapiro/arduino-learning-board-15-mini-projects-online-les?ref=nav_search

My Alice Mini breadboard comes with a SD card slot, OLED and ESP8266 interfaces, It offers the best performance-to-price ratio. It outperforms other Arduino breadboards for a much lower price.

The STEMtera is selling for $39 now, $45 after Kickstarter campaign.
The Breadbro is selling for $40 after a $20 price reduction. Many backers actually paid $50+
http://www.breadbro.com/development-boards/breadbro-pre-order

I want to make it available at $25 for all members, but still feel it's not low enough. I am thinking about offering one with an external FTDI cable for $19. Is it worth to do so? I would like to have your opinions. I would like to know if you prefer a built-in FTDI cable or without it to save $6, without the 328P chip to save another $3.

So the pricing is as follows:

  1. $25 for the board with a built-in FTDI
  2. $19 for the board without the FTDI
    3, $16 for the board without the FTDI and without the 328P

Which option do you prefer? Your opinion is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

For the features of the Alice Mini, please visit my web site at www.firebirduino.com

2

Hi firebirduino ! Your contribution is welcome ! :slight_smile:
Your product Alice Mini seems to have a great value/price ratio compared to the other offers.

In my case, apart form introducing my son to electronics and embedded programming (he has some experience with Lego Mindstorms robot programming), I plan to use it as a quick project enabler for my own gadgets. I like the feature of directly plugin in an OLED display and an ESP8266 module for wifi access. Is the SD card socket at the bottom of the board ?

I think that in many cases the best value would be the full ready to use kit. I would like to order 2 of them, one fully loaded (Option 1) and one bare kit (Option 3); please tell me how to proceed.

Regards,
JL.

3

Thanks JL for your opinion.

It seems that professors that we have contacted like the the board with a built-in FTDI231XS, it makes a less of chance for students to lose the FTDI cable.

So we will probably do the $25 option first. May only charge members for $19 if more people and schools are interested. Once we start to make it, we will post a link here for anyone to place an order.

Wayne

4

Hi all dear members,

The low cost Alice Mini with free shipping is available now at:
http://www.firebirduino.com/alice_mini/index.html

There are not many UNO boards with a built-in breadboard available on the market. If you can find one, it's usually fairly expensive.

The Alice Mini offers the best performance-to-price ratio, with a few extra parts, any re-seller can make a neat STEM educational kit at low cost.

The UNO Upgrade module is also available to forum members for the first time. We don't have many in hand, so act quickly if you need one.