​Since I’m on a student budget, I couldn’t afford to leave an actual Arduino into my projects, so I designed, etched and assembled the BareDuino classic. I can quickly throw one into a project without having to worry about using an expensive regular Arduino.

Using the experience I earned from the original BareDuino, I started the BareDuino Nano project at the age of 13. I saw Fabio Varesano’s Femtoduino and really liked the idea, so I set myself the challenge of making it even smaller. Needless to say I’ve succeeded. In order to make it smaller, I had to use 0402 resistors and capacitors (which were a pain to hand-solder) and use 1.27mm spaced headers.

Because I was working with such small components, I had to use solderpaste and a soldering oven to get it right. For assembling earlier revisions, I tried to apply the solderpaste by hand but it just wouldn’t work well enough/at all. Eventually I went over to a nearby FabLab and laser-cut some stencils for applying the solder paste.

I didn't build this to get credit, but because I love challenges. I finished a working prototype within half a year, and the challenge was gone. It was only 2 years later that I picked it up again and decided to try and get it in production.