AVRSimon Game Kit – Parallax continues towards more Open Source Hardware products

This HUGE news, Parallax has an open source hardware kit out (their first) – the “AVRSimon Game Kit”. It was made by Joe Grand – based on the MAKE kit and “All contents of this kit are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)”. It’s AVR too, this is interesting if you’re a chip geek.

Soldering is required for this kit. AVRSimon is a do-it-yourself game kit based on the 1978 Milton Bradley flying saucer-shaped game of Simon in which players repeat sequences of light and sound. Designed by Grand Idea Studio, AVRSimon is a great way to learn about electronics and soldering, and incorporates basic microcontroller functions such as reading switch inputs, turning LEDs on and off, and generating sounds. It is fully reprogrammable, so you can modify the game or load new code onto the board to have it do something completely different.

AVRSimon comes in kit form with a high-quality PCB, pre-programmed microcontroller, and the best components we could buy to ensure that your finished project reflects the effort you impart with your own craftsmanship. The only other tools you will need to build the kit are a soldering iron, solder, wire snips, and a CR2032 3V Lithium Coin Cell battery (available at any supermarket or convenience store).

Parallax has a long history of publishing source and schematics, but this is the first “kit” that is “Open source hardware”.

MAKE volume 10 – page 81. Chip Gracey puts a new spin on microcontrollers.