Since the Arduino was introduced to the public in few years ago, it has become one of the most popular microcontrollers in the electronic/electrical industry.

One of the reasons why Arduino is becoming hotter and hotter, maybe due to its compatibility and it can be used to develop many stand-alone interactive projects without any modifications at all!

The main topic for today is about the Arduino Ethernet Shield, where it allows an Arduino board to connect to the internet easily. It is based on the Wiznet W5100 Ethernet chip. The main function of Wiznet W5100 is to provide a network (IP) stack capable of both TCP and UDP. It can support up to four simultaneous socket connections in any given time.

Furthermore, the Ethernet shield is connects to an Arduino board by using long wire-wrap headers, where it can be extended through the shield. By this way, it will keep the pin layout intake and allows another shield to be stacked on top instantly.

Arduino is uses digital pins 10, 11, 12 and 13 to communicate with the w5100 on the ethernet shield and these pins cannot be used for general I/O.

The shield will provide a standard RJ45 Ethernet jack, while the reset button on the shield will be used to reset both the W5100 and the Arduino board!

Most of you here must have tried to find the effective way to burn the bootloader without external AVR-Writer, but have you found it yet?

Well, if you haven’t got what you’re searching, then today’s is you lucky day, as this project is the thing that you’ve scouring for. Normally, when you’re trying to burn the bootloader of Arduino Diecimila, you have to connect external AVR-Writer to ICSP of Diecimila and it’s totally a troublesome procedure.

By using this incredible method, you can easily burn the bootloader by Diecimila itself without external AVR-Writer and causing any troubles to you! For this project, you will need a FT232RL BitBang Mode AVR-Writer, where it’s an USB-Serial bridge on an Arduino Diecimila PCB. It has a function to manipulate each signal pin directly and it’s called BitBang Mode.

First and foremost, you need to modify the Diecimila. There are four pads written as X3 near FY232RL on a Diecimila PCB and these pads are connected to the control pins of FT232RL. After it, remove the solder of these pads and insert a pin-header. Lastly, it’s time to give it a last soldering and you’re done with it!

With a slightly modification, you now can burn the bootloader without external AVR-Writer!

Amongst the electronic projects, there is nothing to be more exciting than develop a robot, isn’t it? Well, if you have passion on the homebrew robot, then you might be interested on today’s project!

Guys, let’s meet this outstanding Self-Balancing Robot! Ok, it seems a little dull to you here, but don’t judge its ability based on the appearance first.

For your information, this project will cost you about $350 to build and this cost is covering most of the main and sub components here (Well, if you think that it is too expensive to you, then you should leave it alone, as it’s already the minimal total price!)

Arduino Diecimila will be the main board that going to be used in this project, as it has two regulated output and many other features. Beside that, you will need to use the IMU Combo Board from Sparkfun as the IMU sensor, as it’s to be known the best in fine balancing and stability controlling! For the engine part, make sure to put two EMG30 12V 170rpm motors with encoders and a MD23 motor controller as well. The controller can be used to spin the motors at different speeds. For saving more energy, you might want to use some standard rechargeable battery.

Most of the electronic projects need to use many electronic components to assemble it up and it finally turning into a mess in the very end.

Like the old saying, “Simple is the best!” Due to this old adage, you’ll have the chance to develop a handy yet portable Pin Visualizer. Well, this project is considering as a simple project, as it requires only two main parts here, which are Arduino and TouchShield Stealth!

The Arduino that you’re going to use in this project is an AVR microcontroller board based on the ATmega168. It has 14 digital I/O pins, 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header and a reset button.

Meanwhile, the TouchShield would be a 128×128 pixel OLED screen on a PCB shield. It is an Arduino-ready and can be used to bring advanced I/O capabilities to the Arduino platform. The new version of Stealth Edition has an all-blacked out board, where it looks very slick on top of the dark blue Arduino.

Furthermore, the TouchShield will only use pins 2 & 3, which means it will leave 6 analog pins and 12 digital pins free for other purposes. All of the signals are followed in real-time simultaneously.

After you’ve done with it, it’s time to use it to check your programming work and debug your code easily!

If you’re one of those gameboy lovers and you always have passion want to try something new here, then you’ve come to the right place!

For your information, today’s main theme is how to make an open source gameboy. You must be wondered, “Why should I waste $250 for develop an open source gameboy, instead I can buy 10 used gameboy on eBay easily?” Well, it sounds non-sense to you here, but once you’ve learned how to DIY a gameboy, you’ll be pleased of what you’ve done here!

This Open source Gameboy is an Arduino-based, DIY GamePack is sort of like the Mignon Game Kit, but it is definitely looks much better and cooler. With only $249.93, you can have all these parts: CPU, “inputshield” customizable, vibrating controller, button component, “TouchShield Stealth” OLED display unit, and “MeCap” lithium battery pack.

All you have to do here is try your best to assemble all the parts together and you start the game adventure right away! The only problem is this is still a blank slate with little more than code for a color-changing dot to start with. IF you want to play any games on this new Gameboy, then you’re going to write your very own game codes!