The Basic Stamp

Todays lecture was all about the Basic Stamp and what it is built from and what it can do.

I've seen this microcontroller around before and I've read some about it on the nets, so many of the things was familiar to me. But since I've never used one before, it was interesting to see one irl =)

After some hours of introduction and viewing of sample code, we got to do our own "hack-cable". That's basically a serial cable that connect to the Basic Stamps pins and allows you to program it. Everything went well and I got to solder some...always fun! Unfortunately I had to leave early for a lecture on another course, so I missed the last part of the board building, but I trust my project mates made it all work.

From the introduction we got on the Basic Stamp and mainly on the aspect of it being able to run without a PC attached, I feel that this is a much better hardware to use when doing prototypes or home projects. The Phidgets are fine as an introduction, but they simply get bulky and hard to manage physically when you get a couple of devices hooked up. With the stamp, you just build your own circuit on a small breadboard or use a PCB, and incorporate the sensors as they are without any extra USB controllers and others. Neat!

A note on our project ideas also: we had a meeting today and did some more brainstorming. We'll be heading out to Cine4 tomorrow to get some inspiration and spawn more ideas. Then dinner!