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The Ultimate Project Kit?

dougw

The question is what constitutes an ideal project kit?

Of course it is going to be impossible to come up with a universal set of building blocks that covers every application, but given a fairly generic set of basic building blocks, what would be the most common solution that you would propose - to fit more applications than other solutions?

Assume a generic project would include a microcontroller, a sensor, an actuator, a user interface, and a power supply.

What else? Would you include signal conditioning circuits or amplifiers? Would you include audio components? Would you include LEDs?

To get the ball rolling, I would suggest 2 scenarios - a high end kit and a lower end kit.

For the high end kit I would go with an Arduino Giga with its touch LCD, a ToF Laser Ranging Sensor, a servo motor, and a USB C power module. The Giga could use a small powered speaker as a nice option.

For the lower kit I would go with an Arduino Nano R4 and a 1" OLED display instead of the Giga but keep the ToF sensor, servo and USB C power.

I expect others will prefer a Raspberry Pi to a Giga, but we will find out in the comments.

Leave a comment to elaborate on your thinking.

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  • Funny you should bring up the topic, as in one of the recent posts I reminisced about Shopping Carts as prizes, as the cart could provide a variety of parts and sensors to be ordered for future E14 project builds.   requested suggestions for kit packages. I need to actually make the lists and categories, but I'll share the thoughts here.

    I'd somewhat agree one kit could be an Arduino GiGa with that nice touchscreen and bluetooth speaker. 

    My Ultimate kit would be the entire barrage of parts & categories listed below. 

    For E14 I'd like to see parts kits like this to pick from:

    Motion kit - Arduino Nano & RPI Pico 2 ,terminal block shields, 2 small 100 rpm DC gearmotors , 2 standard stepper motors,  H bridges, 12V solenoids, small linear motor assembly, micro servos, standard size servos, small LEMs, small  OLED displays , 186650 batteries, battery holder with switch, and charger

    Discrete IO kit: Arduino Nano & RPI Pico 2 , terminal blocks shields, some level shifters, PCB terminal boards , .1 inch pins and headers,  some 3V & 5V Reed relays, IM03GR,IM05GR,IM06GR relays,  some Hall effect sensors,  capacitive touch switches , toggle switches, PTC fuse assortment , limit switches, tilt switches, capacitive touch switches, toggle/slide switches, digital pot/encoder , ping sensors, 

    I2C/SPI Sensor kit : Arduino Nano & RPI Pico 2 with I2C sensors du jour:  compass, gyro, 6 axis accelerometer, stress/force sensors , temperature, humidity,  gasses, etc... etc...  

    Analog Sensors du jour: Arduino Nano & RPI Pico 2 with temperature, position ,  even tho digital - ToF, ping, etc..  

    Opticals: Arduino Nano & RPI Pico 2 , some level shifters,VS3813s & IR Leds, IR phototransistors, visible light phototransistors, Light Dependant Resistors, WS2812 individual LED.s, WS2812 LED rings, WS2812 strips,  Arducam / Pi camera ,  etc.. 

    Audio: 15W amp card with pot, LM386 amp card, small audio transformers, small speakers in enclosures, piezo buzzers, DFplayer (SD card), DFplayer with internal storage, piezo buzzers, etc..

    Vision & AI: Arduino Q / Portenza,  cameras,  

    Environment sensor kit & IOT : Arduino & RPi Pico 2 W with combination of analog and i2C environmental sensors Arduino & RPi Pico W 

    I got tired of typing, (noticing the lists got shorter as I got closer to the end,)  but I hope everyone gets my drift. 

  • in reply to robogary

    oh that’s really good. I was thinking the same thing about the shopping carts not being available anymore, so having kits like that as choices really makes a lot of sense. I can see that shopping carts add a lot of complexity for the organizers so kits would make that easier too.

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