Gallery: Design Like No One Is Patenting — How SparkFun Stays Ahead of the Pack
01company-toast
*The SparkFun team toasts to 10 years in business. Engineers, manufacturers, IT, sales, QA, business, marketing, and customer service people all work together under one roof in Boulder, Colorado.*
02autonomousvehiclecompetition-2012-02
*Racers line up in SparkFun's 4th annual [Autonomous Vehicle Competition](http://www.sparkfun.com/news/767). Participants create vehicles that race around SparkFun's HQ without human intervention of any kind.* 
03linzcraigteachingsparkfunworkshop
*Over the year, SparkFun offers workshops both on- and off-site. These events help get new customers into their products of course, but they also help SparkFun come up with new ideas or refinements. "While professionals, hobbyists and some students might want the newest, coolest revision of a product for their project, a teacher or librarian who is using our SparkFun Inventor’s Kit to teach a class on electronics and programming wants their educational materials to be more stable," says Boudreaux, "Educators need the guides, documentation and tools to be consistent for their semester or year-long class."*
04fridaynewproductpostvideoshoot
*SparkFun's lineup changes so often, that they run a weekly podcast highlighting the latest additions to the catalog. Even then, not everything gets featured. "I'd say that we will never stop having our New Friday Product Post," says Boudreaux, "We just had our one-hundredth New Friday Product Video and we’re looking forward to the next one hundred!"*
05lilypadatmegaboard
*The LilyPad Arduino is an Arduino customized for wearable projects. "We worked with [Leah Buechley](http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/133) to develop the line and we manufacture all of the LilyPad products here at our headquarters in Boulder," Boudreaux says.* "Many of our suppliers change their components also, to respond to the market and improve their offerings," says Boudreaux, "That just further encourages us to do the same, especially when the revisions to a product affect our accompanying products. So if an Arduino-based kit that we make uses an Arduino UNO, and then Arduino decides to rev the Uno, SparkFun has to rev the kit as well."
06sparkfunwiflysheild
*SparkFun's WiFly Shield is one of more then 400 products that are designed and manufactured in-house. During development, they use a PCB prototyping service which gives them test units in the standard green color. Once the prototype is ready for production, they switch to SparkFun's iconic red boards. "It's always exciting when a product goes from green to red," says Boudreaux.*
07mydatapickandplacemachine-2
*As 2012 began, SparkFun realized that they were beginning to reach capacity for their ability to manufacture their custom PCBs on the [pick and place machines](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMT_placement_equipment) they were running. It was a choice between adding a third shift to work the current machines, or bringing in a new faster device. Enter the [MYDATA MY100LXe](http://www.sparkfun.com/news/1033).*
08sparkfunshippingdepartment-stockshelves
*To manage their constantly shifting supplies and the space available, SparkFun divides its inventory into three streams. A-list items are high sellers and valuable. These, SparkFun keeps in stock at all costs. B-list items are things that the company will allow to lapse and C-listers are obscure items that hardly anyone ever buys. These might not be kept in stock at all, but ordered on demand.*
