Author Spotlight: Qtechknow

Here at Instructables HQ we are super proud of Quin, also known as Qtechknow. He visited Instructables HQ last week with his parents and we got to see some of his arduino kits, he got to play with Bilal's air guitar, talk shop, and get a tour of the office - and I got to interview him!  Quin is 11 years old and has only been dabbling in electronics for a little while, but he's already posting fantastic instructables. He recently opened up his own store, also called Qtechknow, and you should really check it out - he did a great job with it. He stocks tons of plug-and-play beginners kits for arduino.

What inspired you to post your first instructable?

Well, I started to do arduino after Maker Faire last year. I heard about Instructables, and I saw some people doing Instructables for all their kits and electronic designs, so I got an account and I posted my first instructable. And I really had fun with it, so I posted like 20 I think.

And how long have you been working with electronics?

One year.

One year? That's awesome, you've accomplished a lot in one year! So... we've heard you have a store - how is it going, how long did it take you to set up a whole store?

Well, it took a long time. I started around February or March. But I am not selling anything yet, because I just went on a long vacation. But it took a lot of work, a lot more than you'd imagine!

Do you have any exciting instructables planned? Anything big coming out soon?

I have this table - it's a musical table. It's a glass table that has four sides and it has these touch panels so it's basically like sensors at the bottom that detect if your fingers are on top of it. And then you can play any instrument by just tapping a button and choosing a different instrument.

How far are you on that?

I just thought up the idea!

Well we have a lot of people here that are doing musical projects, synthesizers and things, so you won't be alone with that!I was looking at your store, and you have a lot of funny projects, like the the ArduSensor Fart. What out of all the projects you've done is your favorite?

Probably the gas cap! (Editor's note - he came wearing it! We didn't get to see it in action, though, which is probably for the best. :D) It's really fun. It has a XBee and an arduino in the hat, with LEDs and a bar graph, and it has a fart sensor in a little Altoids tin with an XBee so you fart into it and then it lights the LEDs up! It's actually just a methane sensor. You can get them for only five dollars - it's really cheap. You could combine it with H2S and a microphone which I might make a giant evaluation board later for that, but it's just methane right now.

Did you want to say anything else about your store?

It's all fun kits! It's mostly for beginners, but advanced users could still use it. They're all plug and play things for the arduino to get started.