With the launch of any new development board comes prototyping, troublshooting, and building — and ultimately, sharing. We’ve seen it dozens (upon dozens) of times over the last decade, from single-board microcontrollers to SBCs, be they for development or at-home media centers. And with the release of each new board the prices either seem to stay level or even drop, while the board expands its capabilities and offerings.
This in turn gets makers to take advantage of bumps – or jumps – in specifications like processor speed or memory, or gets us innovating with outright new features like on-board Bluetooth and CapSense.
That’s where the PSoC 4 BLE Pioneer Kit from Cypress Semiconductor comes in.
For $49 you get a number of boards, modules, and components, including the baseboard, seen above. Physically, it’s not much larger than an Arduino Uno, and shields for that board fit nicely into the header pins on the PSoC 4 BLE, seen on the left. On the right there are header pins that accommodate the PSoC 4 BLE and PRoC BLE modules (the former is shown installed), both of which come with the kit. The baseboard also includes a built-in user button, CapSense proximity header, and CapSense slider (and I’ll note that Cypress’s resolution and sensitivity really is the best in the game). Still included is a USB dongle and jumper cables, USB cable, CR2032 battery, and “Quick Start Guide” that easily identifies each of the boards’ and modules’ components.
We’ll have some exciting primer projects built with the PSoC 4 BLE to share with you in the weeks and months ahead, but in the meantime you’ll no doubt want to get prototyping. If you either want to share your design, or ask others for troubleshooting tips (hey we each get stuck occasionally — I know I do!), we’ve launched a Google+ Community just for you.
So join us over at PSoC Maker and if you’re sharing on the ‘net at large be sure to use the hashtag #PSoCMaker — we’ll be watching!
Kits from previous giveaways have recently been sent out so those recipients should receive their packages soon.
Enter the PSoC Pioneer Challenge and you could win $2,500 for travel to Maker Faire Bay Area in May. Projects should include the PSoC 4 BLE kit from Cypress Semiconductor. This new development board includes Bluetooth and CapSense, along with a software IDE that makes building for the IoT both fun and challenging.
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