A good prototyping board with many features can save a day. As there are all you need you can instantly focus on things you need it to do. Aithon Robotics LLC wanted to make powerful but yet simple to work with ARM board which would fit most needs – especially in robotics. First of all it is based on ARM Cortex-M4 STM32F407 that features FPU. 512KB Flash and 192KB of RAM can be enough for most of applications. We don’t need to name all the features of ARM controller which actually caries lots of them.

The board itself has 15GPIOs that are running at 3.3V but are 5V tolerant. It has 8 ADC inputs and 8 PWM outputs where you can attache servos. You can see mini-USB seen as device and USB host ports, xBee socket, Bluetooth compatible header, SPI, SWD, DAC, microSD. Robotics enthusiasts will find a 3-axis accelerometer (LSM330DLC), 2 channel 5A H-bridge, alphanumeric LCD header, buzzer, couple push buttons and couple programmable LEDs. Besides great hardware there is software library available which is based on ChibiOS/RT. So it means all is opensource and free to use and modify. If you are looking for versatile prototyping board it may be great choice.

I remember when I was a kid, I had key finder – small device where you would whistle and it would respond by beeping. I don’t know how complex it was, but it worked. Probably simple sound activated circuit with bandpass filter and that’s it. If you would like it to recognize whistle patterns, then there is a different talk. Without FFT and signal processing it would be hard to achieve. Limpkin had ARM Cortex-M4 in his hands and wanted to build something interesting. So he came up whistler.

As we know Cortex-M4 has DPS instruction set built in which allows pretty efficient signal processing. As he found out it could perform around 80 2048-point FFTs and still have resources to run custom algorithms. First step was to capture signal and transform in to frequency domain using FFT. Second step was to interpret them. It took quite a lot trial and error runs until it got polished. The whistler is assembled on slim PCB with microphone and preamplifier, power regulator, MCU and MOSFET to switch or dim big loads. Algorithm is capable of detecting number of peaks, peak width, deviation on one peak and more giving big flexibility to improvise.

Today most hardware have web connectivity. Wi-Fi seems to be taking things over as it frees us from wiring. Wireless applications can be placed anywhere in the radius, while wired solution may require careful planing and preparation. If you are looking for powerful wireless development board and still have easy programming experience, take a look at Spark Core.

This is and ARM Cortex-M3based Wi-Fi development board that carries leading Wi-Fi module (SimpleLink CC3000). ARM processor can be programmed wireless, so you even don’t need to see your device in order to upgrade firmware. Core is designed to run Wiring – same code as Arduino. If you can program Arduino, then using Spark Core will be pretty same. With provided API you can make Spark Cloud projects, that can be accessed anywhere in the world. To get started there are already several shields available, one is so called Shield Shield, which gives ability to use practically any existing Arduino shield. Also you can get battery shield, relay shield or even JTAG shield.

Wrist watch first of all is an accessory which is always with you. So you may want it to be unique, convenient, useful and of course hackable/programmable. While big players like Apple, Google and Samsung are working on smart watches, Hairy Kiwi has built a great open source watch prototype called OTM-02. He wanted to use energy efficient technology in it, so practically once he coupl put hands on few on them, he started working on this watch. As heart he’s chosen Energy Micro ultra low power Leopard EFM32 ARM microcontroller. Since every watt counts, he used long waited 128×128 memory LCD from Sharp Microelectronics. It consumes about 60uW on static image display.

Watch is powered from 150mAh Li-Po battery. Watch can be programmed and charged through USB port. It also features a vibrator motor, piezo electric diaphragm for sounds, five miniature tact switch buttons, LED back light. Watch circuit is placed inside 3D printed case – it really looks and feels open source. Like many open source projects it is still experimental and who knows it may include other stuff like accelerometer, wireless connectivity or GPS navigation.