How times have changed

How times have changed!

I suppose in a way the biggest change for Monk Makes has been entering the world of social media - possibly a bit late but we do what we can!! As part of that I’ve been videoing how we do things now and its made me think about how far we’ve come especially as it was our 12th birthday on Tuesday!

Our first kit was made on our dining room table and everything other than the electronic components was made by us. As sales grew we got the instruction cards printed and we got custom sized boxes made. We went from printing labels ourselves to get them printed and I went from making each component bag to farming them out to family and friends as a small cottage industry.

The first board that Simon designed was the Raspirobot Board and originally they were made and distributed by Sparkfun. Version 2 of the board was made by Seeed Studio and was followed by version 3. The version 4 never made it to sale as by then the marketplace was full of robot kits.

And then we started with micro:bit boards. On our first boards the components were hand placed and then ‘cooked’ in a modified toaster oven! As sales grew we had other companies make our boards (thank you Pimoroni!) and actually do some acrylic cutting for us. You need to keep a lot of stock if you do that though so eventually we got our first unit quickly followed by our first pick and place machine and our first reflow oven - there are limits to what I’m prepared to keep in my dining room!

Some things have never changed. Our commitment to quality (everything is tested and checked individually and often more than once), to making interesting things and to being a small local business that cares about our staff - they are friends and family after all!

Monk Makes - proudly made in Lancashire!