Inventor's Kit For Building Embedded Internet-of-Things (IoT), JavaScript-Powered Systems

SparkFun Electronics, a provider of electronics parts and educational tutorials, and Bocoup, a provider of open-source technology consulting and training, announced the release of the Johnny Five Inventors Kit (J5IK), the first kit available for developing projects using the Tessel 2 and the Johnny-Five Robotics and IoT Platform.

The J5IK empowers users to build internet-connected, JavaScript-powered hardware projects by marrying the language with the Tessel 2 single-board computer (SBC) and several components to get users started.

We are thrilled to announce that Tessel 2 has shipped to all domestic and international pre-orders.

This is one of the first times a distributed, unpaid team of open source contributors has shipped a physical product. We are proud to be a part of the open source hardware movement.

Huge thanks to everyone who has contributed so far to the Tessel Project. Whether you're a core contributor, someone who found a typo to fix, or one of our test subjects for the start experience: thank you. We value what you've done.

"This sounds like a cool project, how can I get involved?"

New contributors are always welcome! Here are a few ways to get involved:

Read through the Tessel 2 Technical Overview to get an idea of T2's tech stack, then pick a repo that looks interesting to you. There are plenty of open issues to choose from - including these ones tagged specially for newbies.

Go to the Tessel forums and help someone solve their problem. Whether it's a bug on our end or theirs, you will probably learn something.

Join us on the Tessel Slack and ask about contributing to the project - we'll talk to you!

You can read more about how the Tessel Project works as an organization under open governance on the Tessel Project repo.

"I just got my Tessel 2, what do I do?"

The best place to start with your Tessel 2 is at tessel.io/start. You can find tutorials there for everything from blinking lights to tweeting to creating your own local internet.

If you're interested in trying something off the beaten path - electrical fun, advanced hacks, and more, check out tessel.io/docs. If you're new to hardware, don't worry! They're intended to be accessible to electrical newbies - and if they're not, please file an issue to let us know.

We're continuing to update the start experience and the Tessel 2 docs, so please check back again!

"But wait, I don't think mine shipped!" - if this is you, please contact [email protected], and we will figure it out. Please do note that orders from Seeed Studio's page are fulfilled by Seeed directly.

"What's next for the Tessel Project?"

Phew, shipping one product was a lot of work! Realistically, there will be some bugfixing to do as all of you let us know how it's going and what you're working on.

As far as a next product- no promises, but we have some ideas....

Partially, it's up to you: what do you want to see? What's the best way we can further the Tessel Project Mission?

Much love,

Eager backers, here is the latest:

Pre-orders within the United States: the shipment of Tessels from China has "partially" arrived in the San Francisco warehouse, according to tracking. We are looking into what this means and how we can move along the rest of the delivery. For the box that has arrived, it still needs to be unpacked and put on shelves (this usually takes a day or two), and then our fulfillment house will begin shipping them out to you. Once we get the rest of the shipment through customs, fulfillment can typically ship 100-200 orders per day, so it could take a couple of weeks to get to everyone. Tracking information will be emailed to you when yours is on the way!

International pre-orders: we just heard from Seeed; they are shipping a large number of these orders directly to backers today. More soon.

If you ordered from Seeed's website: please contact Seeed directly! We are not involved with shipping these orders.

Hello! Many of you are getting antsy about Tessel shipments. This is totally reasonable, and trust me - we hate the wait at least as much as you do.

We had thought Tessel 2s would begin shipping by now, but they are still in transit to fulfillment centers. Here's the latest information:

If you ordered a Tessel from the Seeed website (from this page): please contact Seeed directly. We do not have any information about your order; Seeed is handling everything about it, from money to manufacturing to shipping. Their support page is here. If we had to guess, we would guess your orders will ship out as soon as international pre-orders finish shipping.

If you pre-ordered a Tessel at tessel.io and are located in the United States: The Tessel 2s are en route to our fulfillment house in San Francisco. You can watch along with us as we track its progress from China to Los Angeles, through customs, and up to San Francisco (tracking). Once it arrives in San Francisco, it might take a few days for our fulfillment center to unbox everything and put it on shelves, and then a few more days as they sort out individual orders to each of your addresses. However, shipping is pretty fast once it gets sent, usually a day or two.

If you pre-ordered a Tessel at tessel.io and are international/outside the United States: Seeed is shipping these directly from the factory, so it will be more effective to contact their support directly than to email us. Their support page is here. They informed us last night that they will ship these orders this week.

For everyone: You will receive an email with tracking information when your order is sent. Thanks for sticking it out with us; we sincerely hope you find Tessel 2 worth the wait.

With love,

Hi all! Since many of you have been asking for updates recently, here's the scoop:

Not much has changed since our last post. This is good news! The times listed in that previous post are still valid, and the minor delay we in production we mentioned was resolved as expected.

Seeed has produced the first 95 boards and shipped them to us. We're doing a final check over on these boards, and then we're sending them to our fulfillment house to begin shipping out to you (as early as next week).

Unless you're one of the lucky first 95, everything is waiting on Chinese New Year to end - production resumes on February 14. At that point, Seeed will finish building the boards, ship the remaining quantity for the USA orders to our fulfillment house, and begin sending out all other orders directly to you from China.

Frequently asked questions

When will I get my order?

It's tough to predict exactly, but you will receive an email with a tracking number when your order is put in the mail. For the majority of backers, your Tessel will arrive some day in March.

Any update on shipping to X country?

Same answer as above. The only difference for orders to non-USA addresses is that they will be shipped to you directly from Seeed in China. You will still get an email with tracking information when your order ships.

What can I do with my Tessel 2 when it arrives?

Great question, fictional backer - glad you asked! Check out the sidebar on the Tessel 2 Start Experience for a menu of great tutorials you can browse while you wait for your Tessel to arrive.

All the best,

December 22, 2015

Backers, great news! We've passed our FCC and CE certifications and have just started full-scale manufacturing.

In the near term, we have a couple of action items for you:

// TODO:

Visit trycelery.com/myorders (http:////trycelery.com/myorders) and make sure your address is correct

Check your payment information, either at the link above or on Paypal (depending on which you used) and make sure the card you used has not expired

We will be charging pre-orders on January 4th. Please complete the above tasks (a ~1 minute effort) by then, as they ensure you will receive your Tessel 2.

What happens next?

Our manufacturer (Seeed) begins churning out boards: printing the circuit boards, assembling the chips, flashing and testing them with Testalators

We keep improving the software (see current milestones (https://github.com/tessel/project/issues/106) - you're welcome to join!)

Seeed ships international orders; we will distribute orders in the United States

Repeat steps 1 through 3 until everyone has their orders

We're extremely excited to move into this next phase, and hope you find Tessel 2 worth the wait.

Hello again Tesselators! This Week in Tessel is where we highlight the latest news, projects, and events, from code, to community, to hardware manufacturing.

Hardware and shipping update: We received our first manufacturing batch of 91 Tessels and are very satisfied with the result. Our growing list of Team Members have and started ramping up on PRs, issues, and projects.

FCC Issues Blocking Release: We have a software issue preventing us from completing FCC certification. We're working actively to solve this, as this blocks us from shipping Tessel. Read more about it on our tracking issue. If you have OpenWRT experience, we'd love your help! Reach out to [email protected].

Module Selection: If you pre-ordered a Tessel 2, surveys for module selection went out on July 16th. If you never got that email, please contact [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected].

Python on Tessel: We've started a Tessel Python Working Group. Interested in Python, Tessel, or IoT? Reach out to @timcameronryan on Twitter.

In other news: We're on Reddit! Visit /r/Tessel, if that's your thing.

New Projects: eiriksm has been tracking beer fermentation and published tessel-plops-logger and tessel-temp-logger

Events: Coming up on August 16th (this Sunday), Hardware Hacking with FirefoxOS, Tessel 2 & Rust is happening in Leonie-Reygers-Terrasse, Dortmund.

Thanks for reading! Submit to the next This Week in Tessel with your projects, or tweet us at @technicalhumans.