Thursday, August 15, 2013

Geek Destinations: Micro Center, DTC

Micro Center in the DTC is quite the maker oasis with gear from Arduino, Sparkfun, Adafruit, Parallax, Karlsson Robotics, Digispark, Velleman, Raspberry Pi, and more. 

This is just one wall.
In this age of internet shopping, you may not know that browsing through many shelves of geekware in person is very fun. You pass by rows of products, imagination spinning out of control, dreaming of all the miraculously cool things you could do...

And so, I walked out $56 poorer but with a new Raspberry Pi Model A, black case, SD card, and Pi Cobbler. 

Those of us in Denver have suffered ever since the demise of TechAmerica up on Colorado which stocked lots of component parts, test equipment, kits, and more. Well, Micro Center is heading in the right direction.


They stocked Sparkfun retail packages for quite awhile. 

Almost all the Arduino goodies from Uno through Esplora
They were also carrying Arduino products and some clones.  Now they've  massively expanded their DIY section from one wall to two walls plus two islands. I wouldn't be surprised if the trend continued.

I ended up buying this very RPi Model A, right here.
It reminds me of how cool it was to look at logic gates and speech synthesizers at Radio Shack.

The FIRST kids are no doubt going to love this!
They carry the PiBow and also my favorite case, which I got in black.
They also carry a few components parts like LEDs, at somewhat cheaper prices than Radio Shack.

Digispark is a cool concept built around an ATtiny85.

I love Adafruit. I got a Pi Cobbler today, too.

Lots of goodies from Parallax even an Elev-8 and PropScope.

Lots of robot kits, too.

Even an Egg-Bot!

2 comments:

  1. Ahhhhh, no!!!! I had no idea, I thought Radio Shack was the best place to get stuff locally (rather lame). Now I have to make a trip to Microcenter. I'm in trouble.

    Looking at their website, I see they have workshops. Parallax robotics this weekend, rasp-pi next. I really don't have time for this. http://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/instore-clinics.aspx

    Hey, do they carry my favorite uc, the teensy? How about the arduino mini pro?

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    Replies
    1. I know, it's dangerous. Let me know if you want to meet up there at lunch sometime. I didn't see a Teensy but maybe if we ask... They do have the Arduino Mini Pro (I think they have it in Arduino, clone, and Sparkfun versions...)

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