OpenElectrons NXShield-M + Teemino

The Teemino

As I mentioned in an earlier post, OpenElectrons (Mindsensors) have released the Teemino and will soon release a shield (NXShield-M) that is compatible with this board and the ArduinoMega.

Lucky for me, one of each of these arrived in the post this morning, unlucky for me, I don’t have a phone that runs Android 2.3.1, a prerequisite for using the Google ADK. No fear, though, Mindsensors are working on a library that would allow you to access the Teemino using Python on your Android phone. Bloody brilliant!  I am a big fan of Python, so I can’t wait for this. It acts as a USB host, which then allows your phone to connect over it via the USB debug interface.

At the heart of the Teemino is an ATmega2560 microcontroller with a special firmware that can talk with the Android phone through an FTDI chip that controls the USB host connection.  It can als just be used as a normal ArduinoMega.  This one is actually fancier than my own first generation ArduinoMega which only has an ATmega1280.

The NXShield

The NXShield is a shield with 4 NXT motor and 4 NXT sensor ports.  It also has a whole bunch of servo connectors, more than you can shake a stick at, in fact.  It’s made to fit on the Teemino or the ArduinoMega, both of which share identical pinouts.

Using this shield you could control your LEGO robots using either an ArduinoMega or the Teemino with an Android phone connected to it.  How cool would it be to be able to send a tweet to your robot to tell it go the next room or roam around outside using Google maps coordinates?

Some pictures

The NXShield-M, All the pins sticking out in columns of 3 are the servo pins. There is no lack of those.	The Teemino, an ADK compatible board.  The eyes on the little Android guy light up when you power it on.

At the top of the NXShield-M there are 4 buttons which can be read from the Teemino or ArduinoMega	The NXShield-M with the Teemino connected to it. You can see the USB host socket and the USB-micro connection and the 4 micro switches.

The NXShield-M with a Genuine Italian™ ArduinoMega.	The Teemino connected to the NXShield-M. The board is really shiny, so you can actually see a reflection of me.