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Are you guys insane?
Yes. As a matter of fact, very much so. But you have to do something to escape stress.
Will you build a dance floor for me?
Can you pay us enough? Probably not. Contact us.
How much did it cost?
Too much. Fortunately, we were funded by many generous sources. The total came to around $2,500. Thanks to the economies of scale, larger floor could probably be built for not much more, although a smaller floor would probably cost about as much.
How do I build my own dance floor?
First, get a few dozen engineering students living in the same place. Add pizza, coffee, and music. Shake vigorously.
Seriously, though... we designed our floor to be very, very cheap to build. However, the tradeoff was that it required lots and lots of skilled labor. If you have a few dozen people around that know how to solder, wire stuff up, code, etc, you can do it too. We don't have the time to publish a full HOWTO, but if you're really serious about it, feel free to email us with any questions.
I thought surface mount soldering couldn't be done by hand?
It's just a little tricky. Actually, surface mount soldering can be faster than through-hole soldering, with enough practice and the right equipment. Get a good soldering iron (we like the Weller WESD51), the smallest tip you can find, the smallest solder you can find, and lots of flux and solder wick. You'll also probably want a good pair of tweezers. Practice on big stuff, like 1206 passives, then move down to 0603 and 0402 passives and eventually 20mil pitch packages like QSOPs and MSOPs.
Foo?
Bar. (Or baz, if you swing that way.)
More to be added as we get more questions.