Pi Droid Alpha is the best educational Robot Controller for the Raspberry Pi
I had a lot of great feedback from teachers on my RoboPi advanced robot controller for the Raspberry Pi, however most asked for a less powerful - and lower priced - alternative for simpler Robots. I listened :)
Pi Droid Alpha adds an L293D dual h-bridge motor driver, MCP3008 eight channel 10 bit analog to digital converter, and an MCP23S17 sixteen channel digital I/O expander to your Raspberry Pi and works with any model Raspberry Pi.
| Mikronauts | Mikronauts | |
| Pi Droid Alpha | RoboPi | |
| I/O Co-Processor | - | 32 bit, 8 cores |
| Max Servos | 8 | 24 |
| Max PWM | 8 | 24 |
| Max HC-SR04 | 8 | 24 |
| Max Flex I/O | 8 | 24 |
| Std Digital I/O | 16 | 24 |
| Total Digital I/O | 24 | 24 |
| 12 Bit ADC | - | 8 |
| 10 Bit ADC | 8 | - |
| Motor Driver | 2ch L293D | - |
| Motor Voltage | 4.5V-36V | - |
| Avg/Max motor I | 0.6A/1.2A | - |
| Screw Terminals | 4 | 1 |
| I2C Headers | 1 | 2 |
| HCOMM Header | 1 | 1 |
| 10 pin header | 2 | 3 |
| API | pigpio, wiringPi | RoboPi C/Python |
| Support Forum | yes | yes |
| Target Robots | Educational | Advanced |
|
MSRP Full Kit | $34.95 USD | $49.95 USD |
For entry level educational and hobbyist robots, I recommend Pi Droid Alpha as entry level robots normally do not require powerful motors that draw a lot of current.
Mikronauts robot controllers are supplied in kit form in order to make them more affordable – and to offer makers the satisfaction of building their own controller, for more pride in their robots.
For more details, please see the product page at:
http://www.mikronauts.com/raspberry-pi/pi-droid-alpha/
Please feel free to ask any questions about Pi Droid Alpha or RoboPi here, my forums or via email!
Now I have to go to work on my shiny new Pi Droid Alpha based bot :)