First of all – meet the new ‘Netduino’ – this is an extremely affordable Arduino form factor board. Code is written using the free Microsoft .NET framework ‘Visual Express’ editor. The board’s ideal for a .NET software programmer wanting to take their fist steps into the wonderful world of hardware. Because of the Arduino form factor, many of the Arduino shields we sell are compatible and can be slotted on-top, assuming you’ve written the correct code to use them of course!

If you’ve completed your Arduino (or Netduino) project and you need a box – look no further. This neat plastic case is modelled to fit the Arduino Duemilanove or the Arduino Mega sizes. Posts inside make mounting the boards extremely easy. There’s enough room to mount an Ethernet shield and possibly a 9V battery. Cut out slots for the power, USB and Ethernet ports mean there’s no need to get your saw out!

Power is important – that’s why we’re selling this simple, value for money ‘wall-wart’ style PSU. It’s a switch mode supply, so better at keeping a steady 9V voltage as the current (up to 500mA) increases. These are CE marked, with UK plugs, and a simple, centre positive barrel plug at the DC end.

Finally… The Seeeduino Stalker – This is an interesting ATMEGA328 based Arduino style board that has a range of sensor based / logging functions. Onboard there’s an Xbee module slot, a battery backed up real time clock, an SD card slot and an I2C connector. The board can take Arduino style shields, or work as a shield over a master board itself. The board (or several of them!) lend themselves to tracking, RFID logging, wireless sensor development and many other things!

A new way of programming the Arduino has caught our eye – The language, called occam-pi and a plug-in called ‘plumbing’ allow you to write code for the Arduino that is parallel or ‘concurrent’.

This means that instead of doing task A then task B, the Arduino carries out task A and task B at the same time (sort of). Multiple servo control (where you need to constantly send pulses) is one example of where parallel or concurrent code could be used to great effect. Interestingly, the language works for the Duemilanove, the Mega, the Ardupilot (!!) and many other boards programmable through the original Arduino IDE. Oh – If you want to learn more, there’s a free downloadable book.

Since our last post we’re now listing a whole load of new stuff. Top of the bill is the Mondomatrix range of boards. They allow connection of a frankly silly number of servos or leds to one controlling displayduino unit. All extremely useful for art installations, museums, or people who wish to control the world like Dr.Evil.

Need to measure stuff like voltages or current, or maybe test that something is happily soldered to something else? Why not splash out on a super cheap multimeter. These babies have a turny knob selector thing, probes and a good sized display.

Bought an mbed, but frustrated by fiddling around with wires trying to connect USB or Ethernet sockets? Our new home made breakout board provides a rock steady base for mbed experimentation. It has USB B, USB A, a micro SD slot, and an ethernet port with LEDs and magnetics. Bonza!

New from Olimex is a range of boards using Energy Micro processors. Rather grandly, Energy Micro says that their MCUs are “…the world’s most energy friendly microcontrollers”. They also say that their 32bit processors have only 8-bit power consumption. Nice…

Once upon a time, people were happy programming microprocessors with assembly code. Thousands of statements like “MOVLW 0xFF,0×2″ were written a second by users across the world forming complex and working programs. Then, things got more complicated, and today you can write code for microprocessors in C/C++, wiring language and a handful of other ‘higher’ languages. The latest code family to join the throng is Microsoft’s .NET framework, and with it languages like C#. So what can you program to make LEDs flash blinky style with C#? Try the FEZ Domino….

In a charming turn of phrase from our friends in the US, ‘FEZ’ stands for “Freakin’ Easy” – a reference to the speed and simplicity of writing code for the Domino. The board’s hardware specs are impressive, with a 72Mhz ARM processor and advanced capabilities like FAT, USB device and USB host. Helpfully, it is shaped like an Arduino and is compatible with many of the Arduino’s add-on shields.

Just like the Arduino, all you need to get going is a USB cable (supplied with the board) and the C# programming environment, which is free to download from Microsoft. Many people already write C# for PCs, so changing the hardware over to a FEZ Domino shouldn’t be a problem! The manufacturers expect the board to support Visual Basic code at some point in the future.

After months (really!) of fraught and tense negotiations, we’ve finally got our hands on some mbeds. What is the mbed? It’s a very cool rapid prototyping ARM processor based board. Based on a LPC1768 chip from the Cortex M3 family, the mbed has a BIG range of peripherals available in its hardware/firmware and ready to go (see above). All you need to do is wire up some connectors and get writing some code.

The mbed is programmed and powered via a mini-USB cable. Code is written in C/C++ and compiled using an online compiler, then dragged and dropped (or saved directly) onto the mbed’s flash memory which conveniently appears on your computer as a flash/USB drive. The online compiler means that so long as your machine has internet and a USB port, you’re good to go without software/hardware installation woes.

In our opinion, this little device has the power to do a LOT. Its storage, accessibility and computing power open up a lot of previously tricky applications. The choice of near standard C/C++ gives coders the ability to write efficient, fast programs. This is not a modular system like Arduino, but despite that, lots of add-ons are planned. A few, like this EA board already exist. We’re proud to be stocking mbed, and thrilled at the prospect of seeing what people do with it – now it’s over to you!