A prototype is a preliminary model of something. Projects that offer physical products need to show backers documentation of a working prototype. This gallery features photos, videos, and other visual documentation that will give backers a sense of what’s been accomplished so far and what’s left to do. Though the development process can vary for each project, these are the stages we typically see:

Fully Backed And Shipping In June!

Thanks to all our backers for their support. We're on track to start shipping kits in June!

What's the HIDIOT?

The Human Interface Device Input/Output Toolkit (HIDIOT) is the remarkable credit card sized computer that you can build from scratch, even if you've never soldered before.

With the HIDIOT, you and and your child (or your inner child if you don't have one to hand) will learn practical skills in the following:

Electronics

Circuit Design

Soldering

Programming

IoT

The HIDIOT comes with 10 tutorials, each an hour long and broken into 15 minute sections with 5 minute breaks. Parents can split tutorials over several days, which is ideal for children with special education needs or who sometimes struggle to focus.

Providing at least one of you is 11 years of age or older, you'll have hours of fun with our projects!

What can I do on launch day?

The 10 tutorials teach the basics of electronics, circuit design, soldering and programming. Over time, we plan to add more project-driven tutorials. From day one, our projects include:

Teach yourself Morse Code

Make a Programmer Passport

Make a USB volume controller

Build your own photo booth

Build a Super Shutdown Key for your Raspberry Pi

for your Raspberry Pi Build the ultimate night light to keep monsters at bay

to keep monsters at bay Take the HIDIOT mobile and build your own stopwatch

Keep up with the tutorials as they evolve at our tutorial site. Don't forget to come back after our artists have added their illustrations.

As well as being able to act like a programmable keyboard, joystick or mouse, the HIDIOT also comes with 10 beginner tutorials to teach you hardware and software programming from the ground up. Each tutorial is designed to be an hour long if followed by a parent and child, and we have both parent and child and regular online workshops for you to get the most out of your HIDIOT.

We'll have new projects and tutorials coming out roughly each month for those of you who get ahead, with another 10 projects planned over the 12 months following launch.

What can I do with the HIDIOT after launch day?

The HIDIOT simulates any slow speed USB serial device. This means that you can simulate:

Keyboards

Mice

Joysticks/Gamepads

Any other USB HID device (such as copyright protection dongles, Uninterrupted power supplies, medical devices and so on).

We really want to see what people will come up with, but some ideas to start with include:

Minecraft command buttons

Computer generated art in Paintbrush

Play along to your favourite speedrun

Computer-controlled RGB LED indicators

Midi Synthesizer

Music player

The HIDIOT and your computer can talk to each other, enabling you and your child to build and modify all kinds of interactive electronic devices.

I've bought other kits before, can I use their parts in the HIDIOT?

Absolutely yes! The HIDIOT will work with most sensors, displays and components. Just make sure they're good to run at 5 volts and you'll be fine. If they're not rated for 5 volts, you'll need to put some extra circuitry in for them to work, but we have two beautiful prototyping areas on the board designed to help you with your own projects.

Temperature Sensor - see the breadboard version in the gallery

Our prototyping areas are especially designed to get you off breadboard and into building functional prototypes, as with the OLED screen in the picture (not included in the kickstarter). If successful, we want to also teach you how to go from HIDIOT prototype to actual production device.

What's Hacker Highschool?

Hacker Highschool

Hacker Highschool provides real-world cybersecurity skills for young adults aged 12-20. Their 3 volume series of workbooks covers everything a young hacker needs to learn from Network Security and Hacking essentials to Security Analysis. If you or your teen are interested in a career in Cybersecurity, the Hacker Highschool bundle will give them a head start not only in microelectronics and coding, but a wide range of real-world security skills in demand from future employers.



Why should you back the HIDIOT?

It's educational

The HIDIOT was specifically designed to take the fear out of building your own electronics hardware. As well as the online workshops, we have example projects and tutorials for everyone to try.

In a world where computers are closed magical boxes, you'll have built your own general purpose computation device capable of running anything you can put on it, and most importantly of all, you will understand what every single component does and why it's there.

It's easy to build

It's so easy to build a HIDIOT, you don't even need to solder all the parts to make it work. You can build a HIDIOT even if you've never soldered before by following our step-by-step tutorials, and even beginners should be up and running in under an hour.

Last year we shipped and built over a hundred prototype boards at UK security conference, 44CON. Many of the attendees soldering their badges had never soldered before. Of over 100 built then and since, we've had only 5 recorded build failures. Here's a video of 44CON attendee Akos Rajtmar building one of our prototype badges.

We deliberately designed the HIDIOT to use thicker than normal Printed Circuit Boards and components are specially spaced apart in order to make soldering easier, whether you're left or right handed. Our instructions take you step by step through the process of building your HIDIOT, and anyone can do it!

For an experienced person, it takes about 20-30 minutes to build a HIDIOT. For the absolute beginner, you need no more than an hour including warming up time for your soldering iron.

It's easy to use

Programming the HIDIOT is easy!

Programming the HIDIOT is easy too, we use the easy to use Arduino IDE, and have step by step tutorials to get you going way beyond blinking lights in no time at all. If you already use the Arduino IDE, you'll be able to program both an Arduino and HIDIOT from your existing setup.

The HIDIOT is fun!

If you can dream it, you can do it with a HIDIOT. If we can dream it, we'll put up a tutorial on our docs site.

You can 3D Print your own project case, or use the HIDIOT's holes with a lanyard and USB charger to make your projects mobile! Show us what you've made by posting your projects on our Hackster channel, or on our community Reddit.

Why choose HIDIOT over Arduino? Pi? Micro:Bit?

The Raspberry Pi is an incredible computer and educational tool, but there's no way you're ever going to be able to build one from scratch. The same goes for the Micro:Bit, and unless you're already handy with surface mount soldering techniques, most Arduino models.

All our components are through hole with a circuit board specifically designed for people soldering for the first-time. Instead of scouring the web for projects and parts, our tutorials guide you through concepts, code and creations to get you to a working project, then point you in the right direction to go even further.

And did we forget to mention that all this is can be exclusively yours for as low as £15 including international shipping?

Who Are We?

We're Steve, Aidan and Marizel, and together we're Raw Hex, a UK-based company dedicated to teaching technical skills in a positive environment.

Steve

Steve designed the HIDIOT originally as a cybersecurity tool to teach hardware hacking, but realised that none of the popular electronics kits on the market taught how to build the actual widget being used. Steve can be found making HIDIOT tutorials and running online workshops after we launch.

Aidan

Aidan is also working on the HIDIOT with Steve, and handles all things hidiot.com. You'll also find Aidan running online workshops after we launch and working on cool projects and tutorials.

Marizel

Marizel handles community relations, fulfillment and operations. Despite not being technical, she solders a few HIDIOTs now and again and makes sure guides are written with 11 year olds in mind. Before joining us, Marizel used to be a departmental lead at one of England's leading primary schools and has 10 years of teaching experience.

How We Will Use Your Investment

We already managed to get the HIDIOT to 0.7 in time for 44CON, and there's over 100 HIDIOT prototypes running around, but to get to 1.0 we need your help. All of your funding will go towards final production and developing tutorials and documentation. We're almost there already, your help will get us over the top.

We're finalizing version 0.9, and have successfully tested 0.8. While there's no doubt we'll have 1.0 ready to ship in June, we still have work to do on:

Project documentation

Examples and walkthroughs

Packaging

If we exceed our goals, we plan to start working on outreach to communities around the world to get tutorials translated into other languages. We want children and teenagers to be able to understand that electronics isn't a magical black box to shut them out, and that building and modifying hardware is as easy as coding and modifying software (and that coding and modifying software is easy too!).

Our plan is to make the entire product Open Source and release our code, schematics and board designs on Github once we reach 1.0. We intend to carry on developing support for the HIDIOT after shipping, giving you even more value over the years to come.

We aim to start shipping in June and complete shipping in July. Our HIDIOT PCBs will be manufactured at Newbury Electronics in England. Each HIDIOT version comes in different colours, the kickstarter edition comes in it's own unique colour that you can show off to your friends.

After all Kickstarter rewards are shipped, the HIDIOT will be available directly through our online store. You'll also be able to pick up a HIDIOT at conferences worldwide, just keep an eye out for us!

We know you're going to enjoy the HIDIOT, and hope you'll back us to help make it happen.