The semester started last week. Ideally I wanted to have the boards for the new S robot (see “Zumo Robot with WiFi and GPS“) ready in the first week. But our manufacturer was not able to get the four-layer boards with parts populated and delivered in that time frame. Until the new boards arrive, we have anyway plenty of things to cover. One thing is to build a prototype shield to host several distance sensors, nRF24L01+ and Bluetooth transceiver:
Sumo Robot with Sensor Shield and Sensors
In my earlier post (“Adding the CAM8000-D Camera Module to the RIoT Board“) I was running into the ‘single camera’ trap of the current RIoT Android OS image: with only one camera attached, and switching between front/back camera, Android is stuck and needs to be flashed again to the board. Because this is so painful and can happen easily, I ordered a USB camera for the RIoT board: with this that problem should go away, and I would have a front and a back camera.
CAM8100-U Camera Module with RIoT Board
I *love* the Freescale Freedom boards, and you probably recognized that with all my projects using them. The Freedom boards are small, inexpensive and can be easily extended with Arduino shields which makes them a great platform for prototyping. But sometimes I just need an ARM microcontroller with some headers, and then the 85mm x 55mm size of the Freedom board is not ideal. That’s nothing new, but I realized that yet again when I did my Adafruit NeoPixel clock: the FRDM board was rather bulky, even if hidden behind that clock. I need something much smaller: the Teensy board!
Size Comparison FRDM vs. Teensy
When I ordered my first Freedom FRDM-KL25Z board, I placed an order the Tower TWR-KL25Z48M shortly afterwards. But I was so happy with the FRDM-KL25Z, and because the FRDM board is much less expensive and easier to handle, that Tower board was sitting in my board shelf, waiting for a maybe a student project or to get any other use of it. Well, I can tell that my students wanted the FRDM board, not the Tower board ;-). But when I saw this week in the Freescale forum a user asking for a USB example for that Tower board, I thought that now I could at least use that board to help someone out.
MKL25Z128VLK4 on the TWR-KL25Z48M Board
When I showed my 60 NeoPixel LED clock prototype to my daughter and her girlfriend, and they both wanted to have one right away :-). Well, that clock was just a proof of concept, with lots of temporary wiring. So I decided this week-end to beautify it and to make it look nice and clean(er). There is nothing like a week-end project with adding a few more LEDs and features :-).
Adafruit Neopixel Clock with 60+24+12 LEDs
It always takes longer than expected: actually 4 weeks from the first board out of the reflow oven (“First New Zumo Board out of the Reflow Oven“), until I have it working on the Pololu chassis. But now I have a mobile Robot with WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, nRF24L01+ and all the stuff I have dreamed off 🙂
New Zumo Robot
One reason for me to buy the RIoT board was that it has a camera connector. So I had ordered the CAM8000-D module from Farnell (part number 2362812). The Farnell product page was not clear if it comes with the 30pin FPC cable, but luckily, it shipped with it:
Unpacked CAM8000-U Camera and Board
The wired Ethernet connectivity works out of the box with the Freescale RIoT board :-). But to make it more ‘IoT’ capable, a WiFi connection would be a big plus. The element14 site did not tell which WiFi dongles are supported, and a thread in the element14 forum on that topic has not really provided much information. With some risks I decided to order the Wi-Pi WiFi dongle which seems to be popular in the Raspberry Pi community (thus that Wi-Pi name?). And as I anyway have a Raspy, my thinking was that if it does not work with the RIoT board, I still can use it with the Raspy 🙂
Wi-Pi WiFi with the RIoT Board
I understand the challenges of board vendors: they produce many boards, and typically they have an early/first firmware version on it. And when that board gets shipped to customers, that firmware typically is old and outdated :-(. Same for the RIoT board I have received: I was desperately trying some advanced features, only to realize that the firmware on the board is an older one from this year. So time to update the Android on that board.
Freescale RIoT Board
I admit: I love command line interfaces. Because that gives me usually much more control than any GUI (Graphical User Interface). I like the fact that they have put a UART interface on the RIoT board:
J18 UART on the RIoT Board
MCU on Eclipse 