Few weeks ago we got contacted by Digital Kidz an non for profit foundation which goals are to support digital literacy and innovative education in the schools. They needed hardware board, which to be easy to use and to allow entry level programming with Scratch and Arduino for beginners. They were ready to pay for the development, but we liked the idea and decided to design one such board for free and release it as Open Source Hardware.
The result is here:
The design is based on ATmega32U4 which is easily programmable with Arduino IDE. We named it “eduArdu” as this is educational board programmable with Arduino.
eduArdu has these features:
- USB connector for programming and power supply
- red LED matrix 8×8 which allow text and small image animations
- X-Y Joystick with push button for navigation
- Microphone for Audio sensing and interactions
- Speaker for Audio output
- Light sensor with LDR
- Digital temperature sensor
- RGB LED
- Status LED
- IR remote control LED and receiver to talk to other boards, TVs, Air conditioners, etc.
- PIR motion detector up to 6 meter range
- UltraSound distance measurement sensor
- Two SERVO motor connectors (to build easily two wheel robot car)
- LiPo charger so the whole board may work on LiPO power
- 6 Makey-Makey style buttons
- UEXT connector for additional modules
The board is shaped like Game console. The first prototypes will be ready in 2 weeks.
Target sale price is EUR 15.00
olimex 
Oct 01, 2018 @ 18:02:01
Yeah, cool!
Do you think that it would be possible to offer a DIY-Soldering kit for this? Or is the LED matrix or any other part BGA?
Oct 01, 2018 @ 19:02:04
there is no BGAs, but the boards has lot of components and not sure it will be easy for beginners to solder it, also to lower the cost components we used are in 0402 packages which are not very hand soldering friendly
Oct 01, 2018 @ 19:08:57
Really cool!
Oct 01, 2018 @ 22:08:38
Very nice ! LiPo could be dangerous with kids, do you think a Power jack version will be also available ?
Oct 02, 2018 @ 00:37:17
Why have a separate power jack, the USB connector is commonly found in the household and does the job of powering such things nicely 🙂
Oct 02, 2018 @ 08:32:31
Yes, indeed LiPo could be dangerous for little kids, but it’s necessary if you want to build Robot car with servo motors (one of the intended app). Battery is not included by default so kid supervisor may decide if to add LiPo or not.
Oct 02, 2018 @ 00:40:26
Great idea (and board)!
Maybe you could find some free spot to etch a capacitive touch sensor or two on the PCB? I guess the Makey-Makey pins can deal with the touch input but it is always easier to have something onboard (not needing to attach extra wires).
Oct 02, 2018 @ 02:32:58
Sounds much like a souped up version of the Bayduino,doesnt it?
Oct 11, 2018 @ 23:18:20
It is a really nice board! Maybe next version will came with a oled display?
Oct 30, 2018 @ 20:45:50
How many units do you need to get the 15€ price target?
Nov 23, 2018 @ 15:25:13
Great idea, are there any boards produced already or it’s still in production?
Nov 23, 2018 @ 15:30:14
we made some prototypes now to develop the software, once we are sure everything works correctly will have them on the web for sale.
Jul 29, 2019 @ 06:47:45
Great work with your EduArdu, congratulation!
It’s very good, If OpenHardware and OpenSource Software is used in Education 🙂
It would be a pitty If it is not possible to Code EduArdu with Scratch 3.0 😦
… and only „big Players“ (like LEGO) could have Extensions 😦
What about this Scratch Arduino Extension:
https://khanning.github.io/scratch-arduino-extension/index.html
… could it be possible, that it works with EduArdu?
Best wishes from Germany!
We hope, that we can install also an education-community in Germany, we will introduce the EduArdu in our school projects – and will show it on the MakerFaire Hannover at our Workshops on August. 18th (together with the MAKE Magazin 🙂
https://www.heise-gruppe.de/presse/Lehrerfortbildung-auf-der-Maker-Faire-Hannover-4475334.html
– please add some PR Material to our Order (FLyer, post-it’s )… it would be nice to have more Projects and Examples for Projects … Even the Use as a kind of MakeyMakey Device is very interesting for Educational Projects!
… and the robo-Kit is wonderful!
Keep on develloping such Great openHardware Devices !
We Need it!
Best wishes from Germany!
Heiko Idensen
@web2write
heikoidensen@gmail.com
Jul 29, 2019 @ 08:31:02
Thanks for the nice words! Indeed in Scratch 3 there is no support for Arduino, even the Makey-Makey is not supported specially but use it as HID keyboard and handle in scratch the keyboard keys Makey-Makey sends over USB, in this regard eduArdu can do exactly the same. We will prepare example which use capacitive sense with keyboard to integrate with Scratch 3 as Makey Makey and upload on GitHub. The ScratchX experimental extensions project is interesting we will try it, thanks for pointing out!
Jul 29, 2019 @ 08:46:07
Ah, that‘s interesting – using as a HID-Keyboard – i will Look, if i find some Instructions for that 🙂
… and looking forward your example 🙂
…
In our Coding & Making Project we used the Calliope Mini (a German Adaption of the BBC micro:bit) as a Controller in Scratch 3.0 via Serial: Calliope, Windows mbed-driver: https://os.mbed.com/docs/mbedos/v5.12/tutorials/windows-serial-driver.html Serial2Keyboard ( only Windows 😦 https://sourceforge.net/projects/serialporttokey/files/Executables/Beta/0.1.2.0/ Would that be possible with EduArdu??
Jul 29, 2019 @ 09:10:23
… and for Scratch 3.0 there is a MakeyMakey Extension …
https://makeymakey.com/blogs/blog/new-scratch-3-0-extension-for-makey-makey
.
https://en.scratch-wiki.info/wiki/Makey_Makey_Extension
… i don‘t Know, if it works with EduArdu ?
Jul 29, 2019 @ 13:05:32
yes, it works as it only captures keyboard strokes eduArdu can send key strokes when capacitive button is touched
Sep 06, 2019 @ 07:26:22
Does EduArdu work with;
https://cocomake7.github.io/
… it seams to be an interesting platform:
.
One plugged in, the CocoMake7 is working out of the box as we know it from other human interface devices such as computer mice and usb keyboards. However, the CocoMake7 programming interface allows the user to reprogram the device software (called firmware) and define what the touch inputs should do or trigger. This is accomplished with the well supported and ubiquitous arduino development environment. We have put a lot of effort in making the CocoMake7 board fully compatible with arduino.