Hello Piccolo! Introducing 'Piccolo v1'

After many iterations and experiments we are very happy to introduce 'Piccolo v1', our first official release of the tiny CNC platform!

A simple and low cost combination of off-the-shelf hardware and lasercut parts, Piccolo v1 is straight-forward to assemble, simple to program and fun to use! You can either assemble it with our custom Piccolo PCB design, or use another Arduino compatible board.

How can I make one?

Head over to Piccolo.cc for all the parts and instructions to build a Piccolo of your very own. The Piccolo v1 design uses commonly available hardware, and the Piccolo PCB can be easily ordered in small batches via a number of PCB fabricators. The cost to produce a Piccolo varies depending on sources and volumes, but sample prices are listed in the Piccolo v1 Bill of Materials.

Piccolo is not commercially available at as a kit, however the Piccolo hardware designs are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. Anyone is welcome to produce their own batches of Piccolo kits for non-commercial purposes, such as classroom workshops.

What's Piccolo been up to?

Piccolo faced off against the future with Telefonica Test Lab alongside inventors, designers, business leaders and policymakers at Wired 2014.
Piccolos recently joined other CNC's large and small, along with thousands of visitors at Portugal's inaugural Mini Maker Faire
London's Science Museum played host to Make Hack Do, a festival where kids and adults could explore electronics, build robots, and get hands-on with 3D printing and more.
We've run several workshops over the course of developing the Piccolo design. We had the opportunity to hold one such event at Baltan Labs in Eindhoven, and got some great feedback from a diverse group of participants.
The team behind the educational modular electronics system littleBits, created their own Piccolo CNC-bot to add to their showcase of example projects. They also added a 4th rotational axis, making a crayon lathe!
Hong Kong based media art group XCEED developed a performance for the opening of the Taichung Calligraphy Greenway in Taiwan, using Piccolo and motion sensors to combine dance with Chinese calligraphy.

For more example Piccolo projects, take a look at the Project Showcase

Why Piccolo?

We set out to design a low-cost, open-hardware tool that would provide a useful and educational resource for experimenting with basic 2D or 3D CNC output. By using inexpensive hobby servos and simple software libraries, we hoped to make it as easy as possible to start playing with CNC control and digital fabrication.

We are passionate about tools and products that allow people to engage with technology in new and creative ways. We hope that Piccolo will add to a rapidly growing community of accessible and open projects that are helping to foster a new wave of inspiring makers!

Sincerely,

and the Piccolo Team