Adafruit has created a new robot development board named Crickit or the Creative Robotics & Interactive Construction Kit if you would prefer its full title. Designed for the popular Feather ecosystem which supports Arduino, CircuitPython and shortly MakeCode. The new board supports any Feather mainboard which can be added in the centre.
The Crickit is powered by seesaw, Adafruit’s I2C-to-whatever bridge firmware, allowing projects to use just two I2C data pins to control the huge number of inputs and outputs on the Crickit. Specifications of the Crickit include :
– 4 x Analog or Digital Servo control, with precision 16-bit timers
– 2 x Bi-directional brushed DC motor control, 1 Amp current limited each, with 8-bit PWM speed control (or one stepper)
– 4 x High current “Darlington” 500mA drive outputs with kick-back diode protection. For solenoids, relays, large LEDs, or one uni-polar stepper
– 4 x Capacitive touch sensors with alligator-pads
– 8 x Signal pins, digital in/out or analog inputs
– 1 x NeoPixel driver with 5V level shifter – The NeoPixels are buffered and controlled by the seesaw chip
– 1 x Class D, 4-8 ohm speaker, 3W-max audio amplifier – the audio input pin is available as a solder-able pad for your configuration, you can connect it to your Feather’s DAC or PWM output as you desire.
“All are powered via 5V DC, so you can use any 5V-powered servos, DC motors, steppers, solenoids, relays etc. To keep things simple and safe, we don’t support mixing voltages, so only 5V, not for use with 9V or 12V robotic components.”
The robot development board supports any mainboards, powered by an ATmega328p, ATmega32u4, ATSAMD21, ATSAMD51, ESP8266, ESP32, WICED, nRF52, etc. Enabling all Feathers will work, even ones with SD cards, LoRa radios, WiFi or BTLE modules if desired.
Source: Adafruit