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Makeblock Robot Kit unboxing

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At www.makeblock.cc its possible to buy aluminium robot parts and as I did (or better said, like the university did, because they paid for) complete assembly kits. This one is the starter kit blue and costs about 70€ at the local distributor. So I made some photos for documentation and fun:

Sadly the screws make scratches to the blue surface. So in case you plan multiple designs, there is no way to avoid them but to use some washers.

CubieTruck (CubieBoard 3) unboxing

The CubieTruck (or so called Cubieboard 3) is the third board of CubieTeam. It is a new PCB-Version with a Allwinner A20 Chip, which has also been used in the CubieBoard 2. But now there is more RAM (2GB) and onBoard VGA-graphics Controller, onBoard Wifi (!) and BLuetooth. There are some more features mentioned below, but for my project the main advantages are: more processing power (2 stronger cores), lower power consumption (500mAh at 5V), lots of GPIOs (2mm!) and flash memory.

So I unboxed one today:

It came with an android os flashed. So after some reading and kinda confusing tutorials I managed to get the correct version 13.04 of lubuntu server running on a sd card, installed ROS on it and was faced with some kind of paradies of ros hydro armhf packages!
Something I was really missing at the [amazon &title=Raspberry Pi&text=Raspberry Pi].

So after the first day of CubieBoard I am really looking forward to get this little fellow beeing the heart of my ROS Robot.

Features:

  • Allwinner Tech A20 SOC
  • SATA supported
  • 54 extended pins
  • Built-in HDMI/ VGA display interface
  • Built-in WIFI+BT module
  • 2GB DDR3 RAM
  • Built-in IR receiver
  • SPDIF audio interface

Specifications:

  • Allwinner Tech SOC A20 ARM® Cortex™-A7 Dual-Core ARM® Mali400 MP2 Complies with OpenGL ES 2.0/1.1
  • 2GB DDR3@480MHz
  • HDMI&VGA 1080P display output on-board
  • 10M/100M/1G Ethernet
  • WIFI + BT wireless connection with antenna on-board
  • SATA 2.0 interface support 2.5’ HDD (for 3.5’ HDD, only need another 12V power input)
  • Storage solution NAND + MicroSD
  • 2 x USB HOST, 1 x OTG, 1 x SPDIF, 1 x IR, 4 x LEDs, 1 x Headphone, 3 x Keys
  • Power DC5V@2.5A with HDD support Li-battery & RTC
  • 54 extended pins including I2S, I2C, SPI, CVBS, LRADC x2,UART, PS2, PWM x2, TS/CSI, IRDA, LINEIN&FMIN&MICIN, TVIN x4 with 2.0 pitch connectors
  • PCB size 11cm *8cm*1.4mm