About Pololu

Pololu building at 920 Pilot Road in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Take your design from idea to reality

Pololu is an electronics manufacturer and online retailer serving education, maker, and professional engineering industries with products ranging from sensors and motion control electronics to motors and wheels to complete robots. We strive to offer well-engineered, quality products that enable our customers to take their own projects from idea to reality. Here is why you can rely on Pololu:

• Good people

  It takes good people to make good things. Pololu has a world-class team with shared values, which allows us to seek the right way to do things together as well as to help each other improve. That leads directly to better products and a better customer experience.

  Pololu electronics manufacturing area with multiple pick and place lines.

• We make our products

  We manufacture most of the products we sell. Because we control everything from initial design through manufacturing, testing, and packaging, we can offer unique products quickly and economically. We are constantly improving our processes to bring you better parts at lower prices.

  Thermal image of the top side of the dual VNH5019 motor driver shield during one of our current tests.

• Quality engineering

  The engineering of our products differentiates Pololu from the competition. We take a rigorous approach to the details of every product, from design, to validation, to evaluating feedback from customers.

• Commitment to support

  At Pololu, we are committed to standing behind our products with a full spectrum of support, from complete documentation (including high-quality pictures, connection diagrams, schematics, datasheets, and example code), to maintaining stock levels so that you can buy the parts you need, to providing same-day shipping service so that you can get your parts as quickly as possible. If you have trouble with a product, you can call, email, or post on our forum and receive help from real engineers.

Company background

Pololu was founded in 2000 by three students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Our first product was the unique IR beacon system developed for the 6.270 Autonomous Robot Design Competition. The beacons allowed pairs of robots to detect each other, allowing MIT students to give their robots more sophisticated strategies.

In 2001, Pololu was incorporated while still operating out of an MIT dorm. Upon graduation of the last founder in 2002, we moved from Massachusetts to Las Vegas, NV for its better climate and lower taxes. Our office has since become the meeting place for the Las Vegas robotics club, which was formed in 2004.

The former Pololu office in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada (17 December 2008).

Pololu is named after Pololu Valley on the north coast of the Big Island of Hawaii, where Jan and Ben flew radio controlled gliders while in high school. Many people seem to have trouble with the pronunciation, but it’s really quite easy. All three syllables have equal weight, and the first two are pronounced “polo”, like the sport or shirt. PO–LO–LU. Here’s a video to help you out:

Pololu Valley, June 2013.

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