For hobbyists and professionals, the electronic prototyping platform Arduino from Italy has been one of their best friends out there for developing quick projects. Its drawback? It is too expensive and not small or flexible enough for certain projects.
Microduino studio, a team crossing China and U.S., has come up with a solution—the Arduino-compatible Microduino, will debate on Kickstarter on August, 2013. Microduino divides Arduino circuit into two separate parts, the controller core (Microduino-Core) and the communication core (Microduino-FT232R), which can be stacked up and function together as a full Arduino Uno. The result is a smart, powerful, low-cost Microduino of the size of a quarter.
The Microduino platform uses the same processor and, with stackable shields, is as expandable as Arduino. Each module in the Microduino family has been optimized to include only the core circuits for its specific function to keep the size down. Microduino board size is only 1.0inch X1.1inch, the size of a quarter, much smaller than original Arduino board.
The add-on modules are easily stackable with 27 U-shaped pins (UPin-27) to perform a variety of functions, whether it is Bluetooth, WiFi, USB, WLAN, GPS, SD, or sensor readings, plug and play. Being compact also means users don’t have to pay for circuitry which they are not using, making it highly cost-efficient.
Like Arduino, Microduino is offered as an open-source platform that helps hobbyists get their projects going. All opensource codes can be downloaded from here. Currently, Microduino series already had 3 core modules and around 20 extension boards developed, all modules are designed and tested within Microduino community, and around 700 Microduino fans contribute effort to further develop Microduino series.
Microduino Studio is looking to raise $20,000 on Kickstarter and you can support them here.
