Hi,
I’m fairly new to microcontrollers and have read multiple guides, although still asking the question.
I have used Arduino for quite a long time and have developed some product concept. I am only 14 years old though.
I am currently developing a wearable project, therefore size, weight, and battery are huge constraints.
My project will include; Touch OLED, Gyro, IR LED and receiver.
As I have used Arduino, I am quite familiar with the Arduino offset of C++.
It will be appreciated if the MCU has example codes/ others have used similar components.
Could you please help me on both; hardware and software.
It is great to know of your motivation! Robotics is quite a interesting and diverse field with many things to learn about.
For microcontrollers, one of easiest platforms to get started with is Arduino. There are many variations of Arduino-compatible boards that are available and therefore choosing is not as easy anymore.
A good starting board would be something like a Teensy. All are based on advanced Cortex-M chips, which are quite powerful and have many nice features but can still be used with the Arduino IDE for simplicity.
This should make it easy to prototype your product but also powerful and flexible for when you want a final solution that includes sleep moves for power management and complex interrupt-driven interactions.
We do carry the type of products you mention (OLED, gyro, IR receiver/transmitter, batteries, etc.). In many cases, these products also come with documentation (under “Useful Links”) that includes sample code, usually Arduino-compatible since it is so popular.
Therefore, a good starting point would be to look at products that would work to prototype your project and check their documentation for example code for Arduino. This would allow you to have a quick start at working with various component.
The real challenge may be more about integrating all of those devices together in a way that is simple for you and that works well.
You may also benefit from our blog article series such as this and this.
Another good way to get more help would be to present your project here and explain what you’ve already done, your final requirements, what you are working on now, etc. The more useful information you provide the more likely it is you will receive helpful advice.
Also, once you have a working prototype and you may be interested in manufacturing the product, you can should have a look at RobotShop’s Accelerator program.
Hi,
As mentioned earlier. I have used Arduino a lot. And already have the modules at home. I was planning to use a MCU processing chip. As it is smaller and more power efficient.
The Teensy linked above is actually running Arduino-like code on a Cortex-M, which has many more power options/control, which would probably be easier to make efficient than regular AVR-based Arduino platforms.
Of course, the best would be to have your own custom PCB with the exact parts needed for your project and nothing else. This would make it possibly a bit more efficient, depending on components and design.
Robotics is quite a interesting and diverse field with many things to learn about.