Tiny computer

[Nick]

I have had a minor obsession with tiny computers for a while. For some reason having a massive amount of power and utility in a small space gives a great allure to be played with. But I have never dove into the world of credit card sized ARM or x86 due to the price. They were not really that bad, just more then I wanted to pay for something that would only entertain me for a short time before collecting dust.  But now for a mere $35 (for now, well, almost now) you can get a credit card linux system with HDMI, SD, USB, serial and Ethernet. Plus all kinds of GPIO and UART pins exposed (for using analog and digital sensors and the like)

Its all set to run linux, and I am sure someone will get windows on it for cheap netflix box fun (windows 8 supports ARM, right?)

http://www.bgr.com/2011/12/28/25-raspberry-pi-computer-is-as-small-as-a-credit-card-will-launch-next-month/

I see this thing as a nice solution for attaching USB cameras and anything else you like to some nice compact hardware And attaching that hardware to various RC vehicles. For some reason I seem to want to make rovers. It would be fun to send one into an old mining tunnel just to see what there is to see.

[zourtney]

I keep hearing about these and want to play with one too. I've also been kind of interested in messing with simple electronics / hardware lately (I say interested, but that doesn't mean I've done anything!)

I propose an official Randomland Funded Project! Now...what should we make?

[Nick]

Wait, what!? Randomland has money! I never knew!

To start off you should make a light blink via serial control Even better if you use PWM to change its brightness and/or color! Once you can make a light blink you have the basics, after that its looking into specific components and datasheets and what it takes to control them. All the easy stuff is controlled via serial or just a single IO pin. The hard stuff is, well, hard.

But what platform to work on? Adurino? PIC micro-controller? I would consider those both "basic" electronics, though they are a lot more complicated then a 555 times and some caps. The cheap ARM card comp wont be available for a month or so depending on how fast they sell and how fast the Chinese manufacturer can make more. But that is the platform (with maybe a PIC or ATMEL chip working for it to add some IO pins) that I want to end up with eventually. Light, uses as much power as a cell phone, decent CPU speed and all the cheap USB peripherals you can find drivers for As it is you have to pay $50-$100 for a GPS chip that is serial controlled, but you can get a $10 USB one. You would have to spend hundreds to get camera support or get a low res network camera, buy with that board you could use a 1080p USB camera and make your own pan/tilt rig for it. So much potential.

I want to make some kind of mobile video/data collection platform (GPS,temp,whatever you got!) and from there I want to make an airborn one for photography