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This presentation shows the technical concept of Hans' musical instrument robot, the Piattuino. The name is a synthesis of the Italian word “Piatto” (means plate) and “Arduino”, the famous open source hardware (micro controller) platform. Hans shows you how he started this project and explains the principal schematics of the Piattuino controller. Finally, you can hear some song examples.

Video Link -- I only learned about Arduino yesterday. This might not be the best video to explain what it is, but it will introduce you to the concept.Arduino is an open source company in Italy IIRC that essentially marries cheap-off-the-shelf hardware to simple code such that you and I can develop our own moving things (i.e. robots, drones, motorized camera mounts, etc.). The only limits are your imagination and determination.Here's another shorter introductory video that might help...Thinking About Getting an Arduino? Watch ThisAnd "believe me" (as Trump says), I am an old fart so don't tell me that old...

(This is about using Windows 10 on tiny embedded hardware for Internet-connected devices.) Windows 10 IoT Insider Preview was released yesterday (Apr 29) for various low cost hardware types - Raspberry Pi 2, MinnowBoard MAX, Intel Galileo and Arduino. It's available from here https://ms-iot.github.io/content/GetStarted.htm In this blog post I'll be getting the IoT release up and running on one of those devices, the Raspberry Pi 2. (Article goes into detailed steps of how to load Windows 10 onto a Raspberry Pi 2.)

--SNIP-- This week I’ve been using the $35 Raspberry Pi 2, a bare-bones Linux computer no bigger than a juice box. And I’ve rediscovered something I had forgotten: the thrill of tinkering with a machine and its software. Of course, that thrill is accompanied, from time to time, with the urge to take a baseball bat to an inanimate object.