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I'm sure the price comes from a lack of scale.

The creators of this should consider something like massdrop.com to see if they can generate sufficient interest to get the prices within a reasonable range. The "Crazy Circuits Makerspace Set"[0] is just about an order of magnitude more costly than I would consider "cheap" for such a kit.

That said, as someone who had a lot of fun with Snapcircuits as a child, I agree that this would have been a great way to transition from something that is essentially a "toy" to full blown bread-board tinkering.

[0] https://www.browndoggadgets.com/collections/new-classroom-se...




Keep in mind the Makerspace kit is ostensibly aimed at arming a whole classroom or workshop full of people, though it looks a little light to me in major components for that. However, it's not meant to be a personal starter kit.


Exactly. Schools and libraries like when they can buy one big kit or set, especially with grants. It's not designed for a home user.


I can’t find out what massdrop does without signing up.


Ostensibly, it's a place where multiple people sign up to buy something, so that you get bulk prices. In my experience it's been much more about trying to get you to buy for the same or more than you can get on Amazon using 'limited time' artificial scarcity.


For things like sewing equipment or knives, what you describe is true, but for things like custom keyboards, it is not.

For instance, I purchased an Ergodox on Massdrop for less than $300 at a time where sourcing the pieces yourself would have cost well over $1000.




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