
Shipping/ordering progress
This will cover about half of the backorders. I just put in the order for the rest of the backorders, and some extra. The first batch of screens should arrive early next week. So if you pre-ordered a screen plus a V2, I’ll wait until those come in and ship them together.
Note that there are 2 types of screens available for pre-order. One is for the original Pi B, and one is for the B+/V2. Some of you ordered a V2 Pi and a B screen, or vice versa. Also, some of you ordered a B+ screen, plus a case for the B screen. Easy mistake – we don’t have a case for the new screen yet. I’m pretty sure the new screen will NOT fit the old case. Adafruit says it fits slightly differently, to make the screen line up properly with the B+/V2. So I (or my engineer more likely) will need to design a new case for the new screen. As soon as the new screens arrive, we’ll get started designing the new case. I’ll contact those people individually as I get to their orders, to confirm what they actually want.
I just contacted SainSmart today about starting to order Arduino Uno kits and ethernet shields. So far, the lead time seems to vary. I had one order placed Aug. 23 that shipped on Aug 27, and another order placed on Aug 27 that shipped yesterday (9/11). I ordered 100 this time, so I’m guessing with this quantity, it could be awhile. But the process is started.
Shipping separately: Some of you placed orders for kits/ethernet shields plus other items. For a lot of these orders, I decided to ship the in-stock items now, and the kits later. Since some of these orders are a week old at this point, and it could be a number of weeks until the kits arrive here. I had a few kits on hand from the first (very small) order, and I’ve shipped those out to a few people. Mostly the first few orders. There are a few orders that I didn’t split up, either the customer said it was ok to wait, or there were only one or two other items in the order.
Current shipping strategy: start with the “easy-to-ship” orders (parts that are already made, don’t need to be assembled or backordered). That is getting a lot more out quickly, then I can put together the orders that require custom-made products in batches. Otherwise it was getting discouraging to open order after order, and have to set it aside for backordered items. I needed a “win”.
Side story: You need a ‘win’
As one of my sister’s professors used to tell her, “You need a ‘win'”. What he meant was, find something to do that will be successful, and that will give you the encouragement to start the next problem. So I went through all the outstanding orders yesterday, and classified them by what was ‘missing’ from each one (e.g. a V2, a screen, etc). Then the orders that weren’t missing anything, I went ahead and shipped. Got a lot of orders out that way. Yesterday’s “win”.
The “needing a ‘win'” is probably a good strategy for learning about Arduinos and Raspberry Pi’s as well. I see a lot of people who get an idea for a very ambitious project, and they start to dive into it and quickly hit a wall. They become discouraged and then quit. But to start with a smaller project, one with tutorials, then people feel like “Yes, I can do this!” and they are encouraged to continue. And meanwhile they are learning skills that they can bring to their next project.
I had an experience like this when I was in college. Sometimes if you set an advanced project aside, and work on other projects, then later suddenly you will realize how to do the first project. My second year of college, I had a hat with a tiny solar panel-powered fan that I’d gotten on a trip to Rome. It was fun. It blew air onto your face to help keep you cool. It looked a lot like this.

image from http://f00.inventorspot.com/images/solar-powered%20fan%20cap.JPG
At the time, I lived in Vermont (northern US, near Canada). After I returned home with the hat, I discovered there was not enough sunlight in the state of Vermont to power this fan. So I wanted to put a battery into the hat somehow. But I couldn’t figure out how to do it, so I put the hat in a drawer for several years. The night before the graduation ceremony for my electrical engineering degree, I was decorating my mortar board. I’d assembled a kit with a blinking heart LED, and wired it into the top of my mortar board. With a switch and battery pack hidden underneath, and the circuit board attached to binder clips so it could be folded down out of sight if needed.

It was completed pretty quickly, and in my project box, I noticed my fan hat. Suddenly, it became clear how to create a bypass circuit with a 9V battery and a switch. In about 45 minutes at 2am, the “impossible” project was complete. So giving something time, and getting a “win” first, can help keep roadblocks from completely derailing the fun from your projects.
Do you have a story like that? Feel free to post it in the comments!