The Retired Arduinos

Arduino.cc has announced the retirement of some of their products.  This includes some mainstays as well as some specialty products.

Some of the retired Arduino products, more here.

Some of these are expected.  The Mega ADK was a specialty product.  The Arduino WiFi Shield was ill-placed - just over three years ago I called it out as way expensive at $85.  The Leonardo was always more of a concept for using the 32U4 chip.  The design sparked many successful clones but the board itself was not featured in many designs as I tried to find in October 2012.  The Arduino Robot was in a niche - it was a commercialization of support to a European robotics team.  It was very expensive and did not receive much focus from hobbyists.

One product closer to my work is the Arduino Esplora.  Many folks had praised the design, but not many projects came out.  I published some of the first projects including the work on pin outs and compatible displays.  Two things hampered the platform: the insistence of using the Tinkerkit inputs and outputs (which no one used in published projects), and the power requirement via a USB connection (when a battery power option would have been the way to go).  The Tinkerkit issue has also plagued other retired projects including the Robot and the USB Host Shield.

Lessons Learned

If you look at new Arduino.cc offerings, you can see the evolution of Arduino products.  New Arduinos consider LiPo battery use and using more affordable components like ESP8266 based wi-fi modules. Certainly the new MKR1000 board is a welcome addition.  We are in for exciting times ahead.  What are your thoughts?

More on the Arduino Robot

Arduino co-founder Massimo Banzi discusses the new Arduino Robot in his debut weekly column for Make.

Banzi states:

After two years of hard work, experimentation, testing, and ups and downs, I’m happy to announce that our robot is ready. The Arduino Robot will be alive with us for the first time during Maker Faire Bay Area where I will show you its features and you’ll be able to experience what its capabilities are. But for us it’s not only a matter of launching a new product. It’s more important to share with you a story of how a passion for tinkering is helping us explore new, unexpected roads. That’s why I asked David Cuartielles, co-founder of Arduino and the member of our team who has spent more time and sweat on it, to reveal how it all happened ... In the last three years David moved from knowing nothing about robots to becoming an amateur roboticist with a strong interest in educational robotics. The Arduino Robot is the result of the collective effort from an international team looking at learning science fun. Arduino is now on wheels. 

You can read about the history of David's robotic journey in the article.

And for more pictures and videos, see my previous post on the Arduino Robot.

New Official Arduino Robot Coming Out

A new robot system is being introduced by the Arduino team.

Earlier thought to be the Logo robot (due to a video post title), it is now just the Arduino Robot.

Specifications

The robot has two motorized wheels and gearboxes.  It has two decks (lower for motors and sensors, upper for sensors and display).  It appears to share the upcoming 1.8 inch TFT LCD display module destined for use on the Esplora.  There is a buzzer, rotary encoder, 8 Tinkerkit inputs (upper deck), and USB port on the top deck, possibly more below.  This would imply a fair number of microprocessor pins, perhaps the Mega or even Due processor onboard (the Mega would be a better guess)?

New: There are several videos of this robot, all at http://vimeo.com/user433152

1. Line following May 11th p.m. http://vimeo.com/65925980
2. The test with Logo-type programming released May 11th http://vimeo.com/65901813
3. Discobot test (2 weeks earlier) http://vimeo.com/64912650
4. Hello user (2 weeks earlier) http://vimeo.com/64761574
5. Line Following (2 weeks earlier) http://vimeo.com/64728217 (which if it is following a line at the same speed as the video, it would be impressive.  Is the line follower sensor stock or a Tinkerkit sensor?)
6. Music for the robot (1 month earlier) http://vimeo.com/62336645

The bots apparently are being developed in Malmo, Sweden.   Known collaborators:

• Work and documentation by David Cuartielles, Arduino Team
• Integration by Xun Yang

Collaboration on this project, including prototype work and code, has been done by Complubot in Spain.  Their page is at http://complubot.educa.madrid.org/pre/pre.php

Side View showing motors and gear boxes.

Prototype Work: The Lottie Lemon

It would appear that some details on this platform have been available since Maker Faire 2011 (when the Due and Leonardo were discussed).  There is a picture here but it would appear that things have evolved since.

The Arduino Robot looks like prototypes nicknamed the Lottie Lemon also in cooperation with Complubot.  There are pictures here, and a video here.  The Lemon appears to use two Arduino Nano units whereas the new Arduino Robot has on-board processor(s).  More information on the Lottie Lemon is on the Arduino Wiki here and a comprehensive video from Complubot on the Lottie Lemon (Spanish with English subtitles) is here.

The final prototypes, based more on the Arduino Robot board set, appear to have been tested at Robocup 2012.  Pictures and information are here.

The Lottie Lemon boards - note the display is a Nokia type and the processor looks like an Arduino Nano in a socket.

More details as I get them.