JonS
Newbie
Joined: 28/02/2013
Location: United KingdomPosts: 4 |
| Posted: 03:00am 28 Feb 2013 |
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An official, although not in any way formal comment from Team-Fuze regarding the Fuze for Maximite & Raspberry Pi
(I have started a new topic as the other one went off on a few tangents)
Hi all,
Great to see we’ve been noticed and are considered worthy of debate.
There are many concerns raised in this thread, positive and negative, so I thought it would be prudent to comment on some of them. Your further feedback would then be greatly appreciated.
The FUZE started out as a project to build a computer I could teach my children to program with – before the Pi hit the streets I should add. I wanted BASIC as a platform because I still believe it’s the easiest language to teach / learn programming and that it leads on to everything else. With the addition of electronics via BASIC programming the Maximite is a dream computer. (Ok I wish it had more memory and I wish it had more colours, and was even faster blah blah – but I absolutely love it).
Being the entrepreneurial type, the project quickly became a commercial venture as the need to turn this into an educational tool for schools and hobbyists became more and more obvious.
I already run a couple of small businesses in the software markets and as such am well setup to implement another venture (offices, warehouse, distribution network, staff and so on).
The plan was to make five prototypes, as near to release quality as possible and then present these to education, retail buyers and distributors to see what the interest would be.
We exhibited at the UK’s largest Education event and were totally overwhelmed by the response and as such took the project to a commercial level. The show went so well for us as we even received the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s seal of approval by the Chairman of the Foundation, Jack Lang.
The FUZE is;
A very sturdy aluminium case, professionally manufactured at a fabrication plant here in the UK. It is finished with a powder coating process to provide the same quality and feel of a standard PC case. It houses a high quality UK (can be others) keyboard, that includes separate PgDn, PgUp ,End, Home, Insert and Del keys as opposed to having to access all these by a Fn key. Any programmer will appreciate this as Fn keys are generally a hindrance. The keyboard is also full sized specifically to be comfortable for extended typing – a small keyboard is fun, cool and so on – but crap for coding, sorry!
Under the hood we have redesigned the Maximite layout to present all the sockets (not the GPIO or KB) along the back so they are accessible from one back panel. For the Raspberry Pi, we have extended all the ports to the back panel to achieve the same.
Atop the case is a sunken tray for an extended GPIO board that includes all of the Maximite Pins, both Maximite, Arduino and additional PWM etc. (The Pi version is far simpler in that it just has the main GPIO extension but we have implemented full protection for all pins including the DNC ones, just in case!) – this IO Extension board is also exclusively manufactured for us here in the UK.
Aside the Extended IO is a high quality 840 socketed (so big!) solderless breadboard (Silver-plated Copper Internal contacts – so not cheap!). This provides the perfect environment for learning electronics.
That is the basic unit – but…. We also include a box of electronic components with both systems. The Maximite collection is more suited to variable resistance projects and the Pi more digital ones. With the Maximite for example, we include a Parallax 2 Axis Joystick that can be mounted directly on a breadboard – included is a printed project to write a game, and make the controller to play it. Jumper Wires are also included in the kit.
The electronic component kit provides enough for around ten projects varying in complexity.
A 4GB SD, loaded with programs and further PDF copies of the documentation (in the case of the Pi – it is installed with Raspbian).
The FUZE powered by Raspberry Pi also comes with a Mouse & Mouse mat.
Both systems come with a printed getting started guide and the Maximite also includes a professionally produced BASIC reference guide.
Both systems come with a UK (but universal) mains to USB power supply and cable to power the system.
So while the price might look high, it is important to consider the content. But even more relevant is this;
We are also supplying retail and education channels. Unfortunately these require margins to work with so the retail list price is there to accommodate this – same for every commercially available product I’m afraid.
As an example, a product priced at £100 in retail will have been sold to a distributor for anywhere between £55 and £70 and then they sell on to the retailer, making a mark-up of 10% to 35% - the retailer then sells at £100 making between 15% to 35% depending on the overall deal.
The problem of course is that for someone buying direct from the manufacturer they are expected to pay full retail so the price can seem high.
Anyone out there interested in buying for the Australian market simply needs to come to us with a proposal and we can discuss discounts. In addition though – anyone just wanting to buy one or a two units can contact us directly and we WILL do you a deal – however, shipping costs will be a nightmare to Aus. So I suggest a few are purchased and then sold on.
I hope this offers an acceptable explanation regarding the price and provides more detail for those wanting to know.
I can be contacted directly through www.fuze.co.uk and will be happy to discuss any additional questions and or feedback.
Geoff, if you happen to read this, thanks again and please, please please, keep up the awsome work – you deserve to be globaly recognised for the incredible achievements you have made so far.
Sincere regards
Jon Silvera
BinaryDistribution / FUZE & Downloadbuyer.com
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