For dorkbotpdx last night, I made this little toy:

It's an 8x8 red+green LED Matrix, driven by two shift registers and a Bare Bones Board Freeduino by Modern Device Company.

First of all I was really happy that so many people showed up and got as far into their construction as they did.

27 people and only one dead board.

I now know that getting all of that done in under 3 hours was a little ambitious. (The pacing was initially based on the photo session at http://www.flickr.com/photos/7175086@N05/sets/72157604783725339/ which took 20 minutes from start to finish)

For those of you who were unable to finish the cable Jacob Hedwig has provided a clear picture of a working cable at

Ok, I just realized I haven't sent anything out yet... but there WILL be a meeting tomorrow at the NW Lucky Lab. I'm too damn tired to think of anything witty to say, just show up, bring something interesting if you've got anything new to show off, or maybe bring a friend!

Anyway, here's the deal if you haven't been before. We meet at 7PM at the NW Lucky Lab (**NOT** the Hawthorne location). We should be easy to find -- just look for the geeks with all the crazy stuff lying on the table. If I remember, I'll even bring my DorkbotPDX banner. Anyway, come join us -- we don't bite.

Build your own dorkbotPDX Arduino Kit

From Parts...

To Programmed Micro Controller

What:

You know you've been sitting there thinking "why don't those two weeks go by faster? I *NEED* my DorkbotPDX fix, now!"

Well, I'm here to tell you that your wait is nearly over. In just 4 days time you can satisfy that need to hang out and socialize (a frightening concent, I know) with other freaks and geeks. Of course, I know there's a lot of newcomers out there, so don't be afraid -- we don't bite (well, Don might, but I'll leave that one for you to find out).

Bring your toys, your ideas and most of all your ability to have fun. We take all kinds and we don't turn anyone away.

Introduction.

The Benito Board is an at90USB162 board intended for use in programming and communicating with microcontrollers which have serial based bootloaders.

Among those are the Phillips lpc21xx series ARM chips, the Dallas Semiconductor, DS500x family and Atmels using any number of STK500 compatible bootloaders.

Current order goes out: may 19th for distribution at the may 26th meeting

Items currently on order:
Quantity,Part Number, Description, Price, Additional Quantity for price break.

mouser:
None

Digikey:
3,AD9833BRMZ-ND ,Programmable Waveform Generator,$9.70,22
8,BS-3-ND,HOLDER COINCELL 2032 RETAINR ARM,$0.68,2
10,X801-ND,CRYSTAL 32.768KHZ CYL,$0.27,currently in bulk discount
2,DS1307+-ND,IC RTC SERIAL 512K 8-DIP,$3.74,23
3,S9015E-11-ND,CONN HEADER .050" 22PS DL PCB AU,$1.62,7
5,ATTINY85V-10PU-ND,IC AVR MCU 8K 10MHZ 8DIP,$2.73,20
5,ATTINY84V-10PU-ND,IC MCU AVR 8K FLASH 10MHZ 14-DIP,$2.90,20

I sent my son to his mom's with one of the USB Serial boards I built along with a breadboard, an RBBA a pile of resistors and an led array. I thought about this arrangement and decided that I would try to build a breadboard attached programmer that would not be dangling off the edge of the board and in the way.