Waay back in 2001, a handful of marginally-employed flight instructors founded an ad-hoc rocketry society we called Principia, deep in the backwaters of central Florida. We built rockets, we grilled out, we drank rum.

These days, Principia Labs is what we call the weblog/research notebook where we write about learning electronics, building white box computers, running Linux, hacking code, designing robot bartenders, repairing bicycles, voiding warranties, launching rockets, homebuilding airplanes, and anything else involving bells, whistles, or little blue blinking lights.

What does “Principia” mean? Principia comes from the Latin, meaning “beginnings,” or “basic principles.” It’s also sometimes used when referring to the master work of Sir Isaac Newton, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, or just The Principia, for short. It’s pronounced, “prin-SIP-ee-ah.”