Introducing the Seeeduino XIAO Microcontroller Development Board

A few years ago, if I was building a project like my 12x12 ping pong ball array ( https://youtu.be/LpQZk7HCK8k ), I would probably have used an Arduino Uno. I still love that little scamp, but -- at the end of the day -- it's an 8-bit processor running at 16 megahertz (MHz) with only 32 kilobytes (KB) of flash (program) memory and only 2 KB of SRAM.

If I needed something with more pins, I would have used an Arduino Mega with 54 digital pins and 16 analog pins. Even though this has 256 KB of flash and 8 KB of SRAM, it's still an 8-bit processor running at 16 MHz. If I need something with the same number of pins as the Mega but with more processing power, my choice would be the ShieldBuddy, which has three 32-bit processors all running at 200 MHz (see my video https://youtu.be/wRK0P65CY_c )

The ShieldBuddy is ideal for a large project like my Prognostication Engine (which stands taller than your humble narrator). If I needed something smaller, another device I've used a lot is the Arduino Nano. But, once again, this in an 8-bit machine running at 16 MHz with only 32 KB of flash and 2 KB of SRAM. (FYI, There's also something called the Arduino Nano Every, which is an 8-bit processor running at 20 MHz with 48 KB of flash and 6 KB of RAM.)

In the case of my 12x12 ping pong ball array, I opted to use the Seeeduino XIAO, which is the size of a regular postage stamp (less than half the size of an Arduino Nano), but which boasts a 32-bit Arm Cortex M0+ processor running at 48 MHz with 256 KB of flash and 32 KB of SRAM, and which costs only $4.90 (see my column: https://www.clivemaxfield.com/say-hello-to-the-seeeduino-xiao/ )

The XAIO has 11 GPIOs, all of which can be used as digital input/outputs or analog inputs. One of these pins can also be used as a true analog output (driven by an on-chip digital-to-analog converter (DAC)), two of the pins can be used as an I2C interface, another two as a UART, and another three as an SPI interface.

Currently, I'm using only a single pin to drive all 144 NeoPixels in my ping pong ball array, so I still have 10 more to play with. Most importantly to me, the XAIO has all the power I need to handle the compute-intensive algorithms I'm planning on running on my array (watch this channel for more details).

Видео Introducing the Seeeduino XIAO Microcontroller Development Board канала Max's Cool Beans Blog