Arduino? When did you use it last? Will you use it in future?

Really? I took one look at that picture and didn’t bother reading any farther. What a mess.

@ ianlee74 - Holy sky scrapers!

  1. No, but made my own.
  2. At least a month ago.
  3. Only if there’s a need.

I’m currently playing with a BeagleBone.

@ Gus - I’m curious your motivation for asking these questions…

  1. Yes, several each brand name and clones. Also have made my own bare bones version.
  2. I use them monthly for teaching workshops. I cannot seem to leave completed projects alone, and am constantly tweaking them, especially at Halloween.
  3. Yep, our local maker group is just ramping up the workshop schedule. The Due is in the house (as of yesterday), so I’m future proofed for awhile.

@ ransomhall - you will have to ask in insider forum :slight_smile:

Did you read to the part where they list prices? Suddenly, the $25 Cerb40 is expensive…

  1. Yes, multiple
  2. ~4-5 months ago to use a pre made shield intercepting tv signals (really hard to do if you’re not in real time). I ditched that solution and used a serial camera (with RLP and .netmf).
  3. Depends on the problem, but my preference is .netmf.

I don’t see anything other than the Kickstarter contribution levels. I’ll admit, though, that I did go back and watch the full video last night and it is a very cool technology. I just don’t like the way it snaps together. If it used sockets & cables the Gadgeteer way then it would be nicer. I don’t quite understand how it works yet. Details seem sparse. Being able to just tack on multiple MCUs on the same bus is interesting.

  1. yes
  2. 1 year ago
  3. yes but something like STM32 (http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Controller-leaflabs-maple-board-ARM-STM32-Arduino-compatible/497384565.html)
  1. No, but was considering it before my free time disappeared.
  2. Never
  3. Yes

Gus,

I have Arduino, I used it lately and I’ll use in the future. My problem with .NETMF is theres no easy way to use it on realtime. With arduino is an easy task to do something on real time basics and there are examples everywhere (Not that i needed them but i use Arduino/.Net for teaching so students need examples).
The radical difference is the absense of real time behavior on .Netmf devices due to garbage collector. If there is no need for realtime I’ll use .NETMF but simple quest as a distance follower using the Robot kit have problems with the delay introduced by GC.

Somewhere in the future maybe could be a way to use .NETMF disabling the GC but i needs to reqrite a lot of code.

I think both plattaforms are incredible and of course they benefit of each other but serve differents purpose. Consumption is another big disavantage of .NETMF compared to Arduino.

Im not in on side neither the other just trying to piont out the differences on both plattforms. Of course some apps could use both as they are not constrained by consumption nor realtime behavior.

@ Pablo - If your only performance issue with .NETMF is related to the GC, it is possible with careful programming to avoid GC almost entirely. I have a few games that I have written using .NETMF and with relatively high frame rates and lots move moving objects you will see very few GCs. Admittedly you might need to avoid or re-implement some of the module drivers that might create objects that could be avoided.

It is actually one of the things I like about .NETMF, that it forces you to think about the code you write and the potential performance issues.

@ taylorza

I know that you could write code to minimice the effects of gc but it cannot be avoided completly. At least I couldnt do any simple program that dont use the GC at all. I dont think its even possible to do so.

Of course it’s possible. If you allocate no memory, the GC will never run. A way to solve a particular problem without allocating new objects, is an exercise for the student :slight_smile:

Isnt it used internally by libraries ? I mean if you use some timer or Thread.Sleep or something ?

I found every simple program i wrote using static variables that do something usefull like getting an adc value doing some operation and then write some bits according or setting a pwm to run GC…

Maybe Im doing something very wrong. I’ll try to post some code in a different topic to not oclude this one later or tomorrow.

Simply avoid any libraries or system calls that allocate memory. It can be difficult, yes, but it is possible.

Haven’t used Arduino, though I compared them side-by-side before going with NETMF/Gadgeteer due to being able to leverage my existing skillset. As someone interested in robotics not already in either camp, the big drawbacks for Gadgeteer are the relatively high cost and power consumption of the controllers, plus other issues specific to each of the three main options. The comparatively much smaller development footprint is also a minus, for instance if I want to make an aerial vehicle there’s Ardupilot which would already have >95% of what I need, or ??? for NETMF.

I’d consider Arduino, or an Arduino/NETMF hybrid on future projects if I feel I need the best value or performance is an issue (it floors me that I had to write native code to generate an 18000 character array).

Another nice usage of the Arduino board: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/133448-black-hat-hacker-gains-access-to-4-million-hotel-rooms-with-arduino-microcontroller

@ WouterH - lol - i was reading that yesterday from a link in the Beeb - pretty scare how easy it is!

Wow! i spend a lot of time in a lot of hotels all over EMEA. I will now be using the door chain every time! scary stuff.

Unfortunately the door chain only works while you are in the room. What you need is to build a FEZ based device which monitors the door while you are out :slight_smile: