Sahara

March 17, 2022March 17, 2022

Best Makerspaces for Sharing DIY Tech Projects

Just built a cool DIY tech project that you’re proud of? Want to meet like-minded hackers who enjoy working on interesting electronics projects? Join a makerspace to be involved in the maker community!

Joining a maker space is a great way to:

Share your DIY projects to get feedback
Attend themed maker events and classes
Meet and collaborate with other like-minded hackers
Learn new trends in the hardware/DIY space
Get new DIY project ideas

If you are wondering where to find a makerspace that suit your needs, we’ve compiled a list of best makerspaces ranging from local maker workshops to online hobbyist communities:

March 14, 2022March 15, 2022

SaharaCloud.io Updates: Supporting Arduino Uno & Micro, LCDs, and LEDs

Using SaharaCloud to program a simulated Arduino Uno & blinking LED

The product team at Sahara Cloud releases regular feature updates based on feedback from our beta users. This week, we are focusing on the boards and sensors we support on our platform which currently includes Arduino Uno, Arduino Micro, LCDs, and LEDs. Sign up to join our beta here.

March 2, 2022March 9, 2022

SaharaCloud.io: Virtually prototype hardware on the cloud

Use Sahara Cloud to design, code, and test hardware systems in the cloud.

What is Sahara Cloud?

Sahara Cloud is a cloud-based hardware development platform that enables users to design, code, and test their hardware systems virtually without needing any physical components or equipment. We are currently running a private beta, join the waitlist!

January 29, 2022February 7, 2022

3 Best Embedded Boards for Hardware Development

If you’re starting out on your embedded development journey, it can sometimes be a little overwhelming when there are so many different boards and microcontrollers on the market. In this post, we are breaking down common embedded development boards and focusing on three boards that are popular for beginner and intermediate developers.

January 25, 2022March 30, 2022

How to Develop a Hardware MVP

You have a great idea about a hardware device that can solve a problem that many people have, but you don’t have the budget or the expertise required to build the product – so where do you start?

This is a common problem that a lot of hardware startup founders have: lack of resources to test out their hypothesis. Whether it is not having enough time, money, or talent – entrepreneurs often have to be creative and learn to be scrappy with the limited resources they have to build their product.

The key to achieve product market fit as a startup is to run many lean experiments, apply the learnings, and rapidly iterate the product development cycle. However, it is harder to be lean when you are building a physical hardware product. Building hardware is a more complex process than software development, and you can’t just release a new software update to fix a hardware problem. Therefore, knowing how to build a good hardware MVP (minimum viable product) is essential to a hardware startup’s success.

We spoke with Akarsh Vinod, founder of Dio, to learn about how he developed his hardware MVP. Dio makes simple and affordable multi-room speakers that aim to make listening to audio easy and convenient.

November 19, 2021January 31, 2022

4 Best Online Courses to Learn Embedded Systems

Whether you are a beginner who wants to tinker with hardware, or a professional developer looking to refresh and supplement your knowledge, online embedded systems courses are a great way to learn new skills at a low cost and with flexible schedule.

Below is a list of online embedded systems courses taught by experienced instructors that we recommend (and verified by tens and thousands of students). These courses are ideal for beginners, intermediate students, as well as experts.

November 10, 2021March 24, 2022

How to De-risk Hardware Development

There’s a stark difference between software and hardware development and why people say dealing with hardware is hard. Not only is it more costly to achieve product market fit, but the hardware development process can take 4x longer than that of software development.

With software development, you can start coding immediately on your laptop after downloading the necessary applications. In contrast, the hardware development process requires coding the system, determining which components to purchase, connecting these components, and ensuring that the code runs correctly on these devices. On top of that, even if you were to determine which components to use, ordering parts can take weeks to months.

October 28, 2021January 31, 2022

4 Ways to Teach Electrical Engineering Online

The COVID-19 pandemic has a profound impact on the way we operate. One of the areas that the pandemic has changed is the way instructors teach, especially for subjects that require hands-on instruction. Electrical engineering is one of the challenging subjects that require instructors to come up with creative ways to adjust to remote teaching.

We’ve spoken to over 50 professors that teach embedded systems and electrical engineering at top US engineering programs such as Cornell, MIT, Stanford to understand the main challenges of teaching remotely. Below we summarized the most common ways professors used to teach remotely.

October 21, 2021February 1, 2022

Why Engineers are Shifting to Building Hardware Digitally

Our CEO, Jama Mohamed, recently had a conversation with Differential Ventures about his philosophy on the future of hardware and why he started building Sahara Cloud after spending 5 years helping hardware startups build their embedded systems as a consultant.

Below is an excerpt of the interview. Read the full version here.

October 14, 2021February 1, 2022

Why Virtualization will Democratize Hardware

Hi everyone, my name is Jama and I am the founder of Sahara Cloud. Our mission is to democratize hardware and make it more accessible to everyone through virtual prototyping.

I first started thinking about ways to improve the hardware development process when I was helping hardware startups build their embedded systems after graduating as an Electrical Engineer from Caltech. As we all know, building hardware is hard – Hardware is more expensive, slower to build, and harder to maintain – all because of the physical nature of hardware. There is a reason why there are 10x more software startups compared to hardware startups.