The Phoenard Arduino

I just received a rather thought-provoking email from a young lad called Irmo van den Berge -- one of three students who have recently launched an interesting open source Phoenard Kickstarter campaign.

There's so much to this little beauty that it's difficult to know where to start. For example, even though it's based on the same eight-bit Atmel MCU as the Arduino Mega, the Phoenard boasts so much additional functionality that it makes your head spin.

Let's begin with the fact that an Arduino can store only one sketch (user application program) at a time. By comparison, the Phoenard can store thousands of sketches, which you access using an icon-based GUI on the Phoenard's screen. You create your sketch on a host machine like a PC (as usual), and then you download it into your Phoenard (as usual), but there's an extra step in which you create an icon that you associate with your sketch. If you wish to share a sketch with a friend, your Phoenard can wirelessly communicate the sketch -- along with its associated icon -- to your friend's Phoenard.

In addition to a full-color touch screen, the Phoenard includes a GSM, a GPRS, a GPS module, an audio decoding chip that provides MIDI controller and MP3 player capabilities, a Bluetooth module, external SRAM, up to 8 GB of Micro-SD storage, and a cornucopia of sensors (temperature, pressure, magnetometer, accelerometer, and gyro).

A connector at the base of the Phoenard makes all the general-purpose input/outputs (GPIOs) available to the outside world. These can be used with Phoenex (Phoenard external extension) boards. There are currently three such boards available: the Phoenex Bread (breadboard), Phoenex Proto (protoboard), and Phoenex Shield.

The Phoenard platform truly provides almost limitless capabilities. You can start with the default gadget sketches that let you use your Phoenard as a smartphone, MP3 player, MIDI player, GPS data logger, and game controller, to name but a few, but you can then use the Phoenard to prototype your own designs. The examples on the Kickstarter page show the Phoenard being used to play multi-player games via Bluetooth, implementing a capacitive touch-based drum kit, and many others.

Of particular interest for beginners is the fact that the Phoenard comes equipped with a suite of interactive tutorials -- all of which are included on and run on the Phoenard itself. For example, check out this video of Chapter 1, Lesson 2, Blinking a LED:

Once again, I am left completely blown away by the creativity of today's young engineers. I am convinced that these lads are destined for great success, and I wish them all the best.

- Max Maxfield, Editor of All Things Fun & Interesting

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