You know the nice and neatly organized work benches where everything is in its place? I've seen pictures of them too. Like most people, I end up using the kitchen table in a sort of time-share program with the rest of my family and their projects. My daughter's Arduino and parts are kept inside of a small box with an assortment of zip-lock bags to keep her components in. Now unless you are really meticulous and focused, small parts will fall off the table and find a home somewhere under the fridge or get vacuumed up, never to be seen again, and probably not missed until the lesson requires that very piece. I had that problem when I was still in high school and teaching myself electronics. Sure I had a desk in my room, but I also had to do homework and other stuff on that desk, and it wasn't large enough for everything to have its own place. I was always loosing parts. And often finding them behind some papers in a drawer or lodged in the carpet long after I had biked over to Radio Shack to get a replacement.
Well, even though my trainer board is rather small, it is a lot more obvious than a resistor when it is time to clean up. It gets knocked on the floor, you will find it pretty easily (not the mention probably hear it fall). So there's another rather big benefit.
So I'm thinking educators might find it useful too. After all, can you imagine a class of high school students, even if they all were really interested in the class, keeping track of a box of parts for a whole semester, let alone a year? You might have that one kid that never looses anything manage but on the whole you are going to have to replace a lot of parts. Not to mention the slew of questions the students will have when assembling their first circuits (see my list from my last post!).
Anyway, my potential market keeps growing. Time to order some prototypes.
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