Supporting Boarduino?

I am using a Boarduino from www.adafruit.com in my projects. This Arduino clone seems ideal for your breadboard prototyping concept since it is designed to fit on a breadboard.

I have started teaching some workshops using the Boarduino and we need to prototype some circuits and have some PCB's made as part of the training. I will be teaching these workshops with some students as young as 12 years old where we are building robots from scratch.

Fritzing would be an unbelievable educational tool.

So, what are the possibilities of getting a Boarduino to act as a Decimilia while placing the board onto the breadboard? What needs to be done?

Vince Thompson

Hi Vince,

as far as I know the Boarduino is functionally the same as the normal Arduino, so you can just use the Diecimila in Fritzing.

Of course it would be nicer to see the Boarduino itself in there and being able to plug it into the Breadboard. If you're interested in that, you can either follow the part design tutorial to create it yourself or wait for us to supply it.

The more complicated part is the PCB export. We currently only provide the export as an Arduino shield which doesn't help you very much. But since we have had some similar requests, we are currently working to extend this. In the first step this could be a special Eagle export target at the Boarduino.

Let us know your specific ideas about the requirements for Boarduino PCBs and also when you plan to start the course. We will see how we can help you.

andré>

Hi Andre,

Yes, the Boarduino is functionally equivalent with the pin locations being the main difference.

I looked over some of the tutorials the other day and found the arduino graphic and xml files. It looks like setting up the Boarduino was doable but I haven't tried it yet. As far as the resulting PCB configuration I haven't investigated that enough to see what kind of work that part takes.

I am prototyping my project using the grid style Radio Shack PC board 2 3/4" x 3 1/16". I am starting to work on laying out my PCB in Eagle this weekend but plan for the overall size to remain about the same. For my project it would be good if there is a way to simply specify the rectangular dimmensions then be able to move components around and place them on the board after the export. I would think being able to reposition the Boarduino much the same way as an IC component should work.

As far as my timeframe, I'm starting a six week session in about a week (we meet one day a week) but the time I would really like to have something working with Fritzing is this summer. I hope to have some summer camp schedules tied down tomorrow and expect them to be in early-mid July. The workshops are designed to get kids ages 13 to 15 building their own robots from scratch. I am planning on them using a Boarduino and breadboard to physically prototype the components. Then I would like to have them place the same components using Fritzing's breadboard. When we get all the components set up I would like to have Fritzing export to Eagle where we move things around and print out the PCB layout and explain the process of etching your own vs. ordering from a PCB house. After that I will hand out PCB's for them to compare with their printout and finish building their robots.

Hopefully in the fall I can add some sessions for older students and adults where we actually fabricate some boards.

I am excited to see the work you have done already and think this is a great project.

Vince

That's a nice plan and I think we can support you with that. As this mainly refers to the Fritzing-Eagle connection I will hand over to Zach who is the expert in this. I think he can create an alternative export option that is targeting the Boarduino.

Zach,

The intention is to introduce students aged 12 to 15 to building their own robot from scratch. The concept of using a soldering iron will be new to most if not all of them and they probably haven't seen a breadboard before either. I intend to have breadboards available where they can prototype each part of the robot while using the Boarduino. I do have an Arduino Decimilia that I could show but I think it would leave a greater impression on the kids if they can place a similar Boarduino in Fritzing that they are doing in real life.

I looked at the XML files and graphics requirements for adding components to Fritzing and it doesn't look too difficult. I'm hoping that the Arduino Decimilia XML file can be copied and easily modified to conform to the Boarduino. There are a few differences with the pin assignments between the Boarduino and Decimilia.

The thing that excites me about Fritzing is the almost ready made environment for teaching breadboard prototyping and the Boarduino that is designed for breadboard development. It is my hope to have the Boarduino act like any other component that gets added to the breadboard.

Vince