Teaching you about measuring time, the project is interesting from more than an entertainment perspective. Adding bigger lights, more colours and loud music can expand the system’s entertainment potential. Which way you choose to go is up to you.

Since I’m in Osaka today, there will be no Wednesday update. I’d just like to take this opportunity to show the wiring involved in charging my phone. The green wire at the bottom of the image is the grounding….

As the timer is aware of the concept of a race, it also provides race start lights. Something that really adds to the atmosphere. The link above not only provides schematics and software – the end result is a impressive model landscape.

Getting started with the Arduino toolchain is not hard. This week, we will look at the development environment, some tips and tricks for Ubuntu users and, as the grand finale, we will look at working with the Arduino using only plain C.

If you don’t feel like working with C, do not panic. We will start by exploring the IDE and examples provided from the Arduino project.

The Arduino project has a set of instructions for installing the integrated development environment for most platforms. We will specifically look at the process in an Ubuntu based Linux environment.

When installing the toolchain on Ubuntu Linux, start by installing the arduino package. This will install avrdude and gcc-avr alongside the Arduino integrated development environment. We will look more at these soon, but first we must manually upgrade.

As the Ubuntu package has fallen behind the Arduino project, it is recommended that you upgrade parts of the toolchain. Do this by downloading the debs listed in these instructions. When performing the actual upgrade, i.e. the call to dpkg -i, you might have to execute the command twice, just to get part of the install through the first time, then the other half the other time.

Having the IDE in place, you can start experimenting with it. You will find the IDE under the Development category of your applications menu. From the IDE, you can pick a number of examples as a starting point for your exploration.

These examples are all based around the concept of the setup and loop functions. Apart from the names of these entry functions, and the wealth of functions available for accessing pins and other hardware features, the code looks like plain C. This is because it is plain C.

An Arduino program, a sketch, is a piece of C code run in a specific context. One could call it “bootstrapped C”. This also means that it is fully possible to use plain C to easily interact with the Arduino. This is where the gcc-avr package enters the picture. It holds a version of the GNU Compiler Collection targeting the AVR micro controller around which the Arduino is built.

The bootstrapping C code can be located in /usr/share/arduino/hardware/arduino/cores/arduino/. The folder contains the entire C support package used around the sketch code. The sketch itself is included as WProgram.h in these files. Simply edit this out and replace it, and you are on your way to interface the Arduino directly through C.

Working outside the IDE, you need to device a method to upload your resulting code to the Arduino. This is where avrdude enters the picture. It is a tool that allows you to flash software to a wide range of AVR micro controllers, including the Arduino. To program an Arduino Uno, you need to know that it behaves as an stk500v1 device talking at 19200 baud and that it uses an atmega328 MCU. That should help you write your flashing command line in no time.

The core of the Sanguino board is the ATmega644p chip, a bigger brother to the ATmega328 of the Arduino UNO board. The Sanguino board provides, 32 GPIO-pins, 8 analog pins and 6 PWM pins. On the memory side, 64kB of FLASH and 2kB EEPROM provides non-volatile storage, while 4kB of RAM provides space for your stack and variables.

The Sanguino can be bought or built. For the builders, instructions are provided for a soldered custom PCB, a strip-board style construction and even a breadboard version. For the tinkerers out there, a break out sheild is also available. This way, you get easy access to IOs via terminal blocks for attaching your wires.

As a nostalgic side note, it is worth noticing that such limited resolution and colourspace is enough to provide a challenging game play. All the instructions, including code and schematics are available here.

The Arduino is one of the flag ship products of the open hardware movement. A simple, microcontroller based motherboard with a well defined pin-out has rendered a whole forest of add-on boards called shields.

But the Arduino movement is not all about hardware. It comes with an easy to use toolchain featuring an IDE for writing and compiling code as well as uploading the results to target. The IDE comes with an easy to use language based on the Wiring. This makes it dead easy to get started with the Arduino. For those of you interested in using C or C++ for development, that is possible too. Wiring uses the gcc-avr toolchain in the end, so the support is already there.

As you might have guessed, February will be devoted to the Arduino. A getting started series based on Lawicel’s Arduino UNO starter kit will be featured every Wednesday.

On Mondays and Fridays we will look at projects built around the Arduino and the various shields available. We cheated and started this two days ago.

On the Arduino Hardware page, you can familiarize yourself with the available form factors. There are more out there – look for Arduino compatible clones – and the project is constantly developing the platform.

For those of you who do not have an Arduino yet. Get one – it is cheap, and a great way to get started with embedded development!

A great thing about steppers is that they are easy to find. You are likely to find them in old printers, scanners and floppy drives, as well as in photo-copiers and other machines relying on controlling the size of a motion. Another great thing about them is their usefulness – you can build robots, web cam stands and much more.