Hi everyone,

CircuitMess STEM Box was successfully funded 18 months ago thanks to your fantastic help and support.

Since then, we have successfully fulfilled five unique STEM Boxes:

- Spencer

- Jay-D

- Wheelson

- ByteBoi

- Chatter 

While designing every box, we've learned a lot and had so much fun. 

Thanks to your amazing support, all of these products were made possible (you rock!).

 

Clockstar - a DIY Smartwatch - was scheduled as the sixth STEM Box.

Unfortunately, we had to change this.

Clockstar will be pushed to a later date, and the sixth STEM Box will be Synthia instead.

 

 Why are you performing this change?

Due to the ongoing semiconductor and supply chain shortage, we've faced development issues.

 

The past year was the best year for CircuitMess so far and the most challenging one.

 

We'd develop a product just to figure out that a critical component such as a processor disappeared from the market.

 

These situations required us to scrap months worth of valuable development time and find a new solution available on the market.


Mislav - one of the hardware devs here at CircuitMess - praying to the semiconductor gods during these challenging times

This is what happened with Clockastar's development right now - the initial design shown in the Kickstarter campaign proved to be unproducable in the current environment.

 

Specific chips such as the accelerometer and gyroscope chip vanished from the market.

This required us to search for alternatives, which caused a significant development setback.

 

As a solution to this issue, we've decided to go with Snythia instead while we search for a solution to the chip sourcing issue.

We will eventually ship Clockstar in one of the following boxes, but we need more time to make it happen. 

Synthia is a product that I'm very proud of, and I am confident it will be a worthy replacement for Clockstar for the sixth STEM Box.

 

When will it be shipped?

STEM Box #6 (Synthia) will be shipped in April.

 

What the quack is Synthia? 

We've introduced Syntia in one of our previous Kickstarter updates, but here's a brief overview to refresh your memory. 

 

Synthia is a DIY digital musical sampler. 

It combines some functions of a sampler, drum machine, sequencer, and synthesizer.

With Synthia, you'll learn how microcomputers and other electronic components are used for sound production.

 

You will be able to create unique music by playing with the pre-loaded sound samples or recording your own sound samples with the built-in MEMS microphone.

Synthia is equipped with:

• A dual-core CPU (ESP32)
• Five pushbuttons
• Two encoder knobs
• Two slider potentiometers
• MEMS microphone for recording samples
• A dedicated DAC with a Class-D amplifier
• 1W speaker
• USB-C
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• 121 flashy LEDs
  
  

Check out the latest circuit board silkscreen design - this will be on the back of the device explaining the different functions it has



We're looking forward to you all creating your own music with Synthia! 

 

If you have any questions regarding this change, please reach out to us at contact@circuitmess.com, and we'll help you out  :)

 

Stay tuned for more updates!

 

- Albert & the CircuitMess team