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• Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I've always wondered why folks used the Stamp after their first project. Once you have figured out how to interface with a serial port, reflash the chip and build firmware images for it, is it that much more difficult to layout a simple circuit board in ExpressPCB or Eagle? The microcontroller itself is only $3-8 from Digikey, so building your own boards is much, much less expensive than even the Arduino.

  Posted by: tramm_hudson on September 25, 2006 at 3:22 PM

• Tramm, that's so very true.
  However, both the Arduino and Basic Stamp are meant as ways of quickly sketching out hardware ideas. If you don't do microcontroller programming very often, getting back up to speed can be a hurdle. Arduino has the same low "setup time" as the Stamp, yet still allows you to do real programming.

  Posted by: todbotdotcom on September 25, 2006 at 3:43 PM

• Thanks Make, for turning me on to Sparkfun. I have gobs of ideas and the basic skills necessary to develop these things, I just needed it to be cheap and accessible enough to get me over the hump to start doing it!

  Posted by: isnoop on September 25, 2006 at 4:47 PM

• I like the arduino and would like to try it out with a bunch of high schoolers. Problem is I want a kit or at least a board that I can buy in the US. Yes I know I can download the cad files and do it myself, but I would rather just buy a kit. Anyone listening? Sparkfun? Bueler?

  Posted by: bpwagner on September 25, 2006 at 4:51 PM

• bpwagner, SparkFun.com (a US company) sells the Arduino board, and a prototyping shield to mount on top of it.

  Posted by: todbotdotcom on September 25, 2006 at 4:52 PM

• I bought a starter package a few years ago from microEngineering Labs. It's another alternative to Basic Stamp. Again, the microcontrollers cost less than ten dollars. You can buy "protoboards" to ease implementation.

  http://www.melabs.com/products/epic.htm

  Posted by: dugnorth on September 25, 2006 at 5:12 PM

• I guess I was not that clear. Sorry. I would like a kit or just the circuitboard board, not a finished board. Sparkfun is doing great things, I would just like to buy the board in kit form. I think it would make a better learning experience for folks (my HS kids) who are new to electronics.

  Posted by: bpwagner on September 25, 2006 at 5:44 PM

• bpwagner we use arduino with high school students in Spain. You can buy arduino kits directly from the manufacturer g [dot] martino [at] smartprojects [dot] it
  they also sell blank PCBs for the RS232 version.
  This is the wiki used by the people working on the high school project here http://www.arduino.cc/es/Secundaria/Secundaria (in spanish)

  Posted by: mbanzi on September 26, 2006 at 3:44 AM

• Aurdo seems like a cute idea but why use that Audro language? You can get Gcc for the AVR for free. The key seems to be the simple interface board. The STK500 from ATMEL is very handy and you can pick it up for only $79.
  It supports many devices add a bread board and you have a nice little system to develop with as well as program you devices.
  Not only that but you are not limited to a single type of device.
  

  Posted by: lwatcdr on September 26, 2006 at 7:28 AM

• lwatcdr: Arduino uses avr-gcc to compile user programs (sketches). The Arduino "language" is simply a small library of common routines that a provide a friendly interface. You can, however, use all of the standard AVR-libc functions and the power of C.

  Posted by: dmellis on September 26, 2006 at 10:39 AM

• lwatcdr (Disclaimer I'm one of the founders of the Arduino project)
  I've personally tested that even people who are familiar with C have a lot of troubles getting started with avr-gcc. I am a pro but I don't like to waste time and I use Arduino because it allows me to quickly sketch ideas. BTW on our website there are instructions on how to build an avr programmer that will probably cost you 0.79$ :)

  Posted by: mbanzi on September 26, 2006 at 10:56 AM

• mbanzi:

  Where can these plans be found for the AVR programmer? I checked "the site" and didn't see any. TIA

  Posted by: ehrichweiss on September 28, 2006 at 3:03 PM

• The 79 cent AVR programmer that mbanzi is talking about can be found here:

  http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ParallelProgrammer

  Posted by: danielj on October 16, 2006 at 12:45 AM

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