Buy an Axon, Axon II, or Axon Mote and build a great robot, while helping to support SoR.
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Seems like a pretty good thing....You should find out if you get their FreeRTOS source code. That way you can expand on their operating system.
I'm using the open source FreeRTOS kernel on my Atmega128 and it works just fine (I've only got 35k of program right now but that is kernel included). So if you do get this and need help with the kernel let me know.
The application board appears to be the board that has all the terminals for easy prototyping. If you don't want to spend alot of time soldering and/or making your own application board, I think it's a pretty good investment.
If you are not worried about size (it wouldn't fit in my robot) it sounds like a solid controller to start with. I haven't ever used an Arm of this type, but if it's from atmel it's going to be worth the money (at least for the processor). I'm not to keen on their OSC protocol but you probably don't have to use it if you don't want to.This board definitely gets my endorsement though. If I wasn't into the gumstix/robostix I would probably use this to integrate into a Linux bot of some sort.
8 digital outputs through 2 Half H drivers—high current (1A per coil). Drive 2 unipolar stepper motors, 4 DC motors, or 8 individual outputs (solenoids). Output protection circuit to prevent power spikes from noisy output devices affecting the processor. Driver chips are socketed for easy replacement in case they burn, and replacement chips are cheap ($1 each).
MAKE Controller Kit: FreeRTOS V4.1 for Make Controller Kit Posted 1 to 1 of 1davidthingsAug 30th 2006As I'm still trying to get a good build of the Heavy codebase to run properly under GCC, I thought I'd post something that does work very nicely for those who are aching to get to some programming.As you may know, Heavy is based on FreeRTOS.org. So what I decided to post was a close-to-raw FreeRTOS demo adapted slightly for our board. What it lacks is any OSC or any of the other API niceties.See http://www.makingthings.com/makecontrollerkit/resources.htmand look down for FreeRTOS.org.For more information about FreeRTOS.org, I bet you can guess where to head...This builds and runs under Rowley CrossWorks and in the various GNU ARM toolchains on Windows and on OS X. I haven't tested this under Linux yet, but I'm very optimistic.
Arduino is an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple i/o board, and a development environment for writing Arduino software. The Arduino programming language is an implementation of Wiring, itself built on Processing.