Free Arduino Microcontroller Kits.
The new electronics hobby parts giveaway at uC Hobby features the Arduino board and kits from Modern Device Company. The Arduino is an open-source microcontroller hardware and software environment closely related to the Wiring and Processing open-source initiatives. The microcontroller is an Atmel Atmega 168 AVR.
Update: You can get a very nice, breadboard compatible serial adaptor to use with the Bare Bones Board from Wulfden for about $4. Look down the page for the “P3 - Serial Programmer”.
Update: To connect this kit to your PC you will need to make or purchase a USB to TTL interface cable or RS232/TTL adaptor. The RS232 adaptor is easy to make or buy from Sparkfun. The USB cable is available form Modern Device Company or from Mouser. I plan to do a write up for a simple RS232/TTL adaptor which would be easy to put together. If someone beats me to it, they will get a free kit.
The cool thing about Arduino is that you don’t need to buy a programmer or development tools. A great Integrated development environment (IDE) is available free. Better yet, it’s designed to be easy for beginners. You just run the free software, connect the Arduino to your PC via serial (or USB with a special cable) and get busy writing programs to interact with your projects.
To receive a complete Arduino kit including the pre-programmed Atmega 168, PCB and parts, you need to submit an article for publication at uC Hobby. Links to uC Hobby from your electronics related web site or blog get you either an Atmega 168 pre-programmed with the Arduino code or the Arduino bare bones PCB ready for you to populate with parts supplied by you. There are also a few of the LED assortments still available so you can chose to receive those instead of the Arduino parts.
Arduino (Atmega 168) Features:
- 14k flash program storage
- 1k RAM for program memory
- 6 PWM outputs
- 6 A/D inputs
- UART and SPI interfaces
- Hardware interrupts
- 20 general purpose I/O pins (shared with PWM and Analog pins)
- 16 MHz RISC microcontroller
- Open-source hardware, IDE, bootloader
- Easy upgrade to more powerful hardware (Wiring)
Read through these post to learn about the uC Hobby parts giveaways.
- Free Graphic LCD (no more LCDs but rules are the same)
- Hobby parts for Articles
- More Parts to Give Away!
Stumble it!
June 4th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
WOW! Another great giveaway! I’ve been wanting to play with an Arduino for a while now.
June 5th, 2007 at 6:48 am
hi
i m from india how can i get these kits ??
June 5th, 2007 at 8:26 am
I would love to have on of these kits?
June 5th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
You can get the kit by submitting an artilce of interest to the electronic hobby comunity. Read the mentioned post for more details. The only issue I could see for India is the shipping charges. Look up the cost at the US post office web site. If it cost more then $5 to mail it then we may have a problem. I may go as high as $10 to ship if the article was real good :>
June 5th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Hello guy! I have linked you in my blog located at: http://pk.e-pulse.org
Is a spanish website and we like your post here, great work!
Can i have a free Arduino devboard for me?
Thank you guy, see you!
June 5th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Very nice site pK. I wish I could read spanish but I can tell that it is an electronics related site so send me an email with you mailing address and your choice of either the PCB or the pre-programmed Arduio chip. We will get it sent to you as soon as they arrive.
June 6th, 2007 at 3:19 am
Hey there I have some articles on my web site that might work.
Here is the link.
http://ww1.hnetinc.com:82/Projects/index.htm
I am also working right now on two projects. One is a camera timer for slr camera’s. The other is a serial data acquisition project.
Both are based on the pic 16f88.
Well let me know what you think as this seems like a great kit.
June 6th, 2007 at 4:22 am
Hello guy! I have send you a mail with my address to info -at - uchobby dot com
You rocks and your site too! Keep on the hard work
June 6th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
In exchange for the link I can send you either a pre-programmed Mega168 DIP Arduino, ready to use in a breadboard, or a PCB ready to be populated with your own parts.
how about this idea as a way to get the kit. Take the pre-programmed Mega168 Arduino chip in exchange for a link on your site. Build up a breadboard that does something simple like flash an LED using the Arduino chip; the uC “Hello World” application. You will need a RS232/TTL shifter on the breadboard to talk to the PC, be sure to describe this part of the project.
Do a short article showing others how to create the same setup, software, hardware, parts etc… Submit that article and I will send you a complete kit.
I plan to run an article such as this as soon as the parts arrive. I would love it if the article was submitted in exchange for a kit. I am working on a post about the RS232/TTL interface and may have it up tonight.
June 6th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Hello dflower, i don’t understand so much what do you send me. (Sorry, my english is too bad
)
Obiously y prefer the chip WITH the pcb to save time to make my own proyect review for uCHobby, but no problem.
Maybe you can send me only the preprogramed Arduino chip OR the PCB for Arduino, correct? In this case i prefer the preprogramed chip, allowing me to make a tutorial for your site, no problem
See you
June 18th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Greetings from pa2600 land. I have linked you in my website,
www.pa2600.com
Can I have a free Arduino devboard?
Thanks in advance.
June 18th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
levitis,
In exchange for the link I can send you either a pre-programmed Mega168 DIP Arduino, ready to use in a breadboard, or a PCB ready to be populated with your own parts.
Send am an email at dfowler@uchobby.com with your choice and your mailing address. I have not received the parts from Modern Devices yet but when I do we can ship your selected item.
July 8th, 2007 at 2:27 am
Here there is my site dedicated do microcontrollers and electronics, it is in Italian language
www.geocities.com/st6web
Let me know if it is good
Regards and thanks
July 8th, 2007 at 3:08 am
I assume you want to know if your site would qualify for a free Arduino PCB or Chip with a link back to uC Hobby. If so, yes, your site looks good to me. I don’t read Italian but your site seems to be uC Related.
July 8th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Does a generic blog count? I post about electronics stuff every now and then, mostly just whatever project I’m currently working on…
http://www.iamelliott.com/wp/2007/07/08/arduino-linux-interface/
July 17th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Hello,
Here is a link to a DIY circuit board pre-heat re-work station.
Thanks
Joe
July 21st, 2007 at 9:04 am
I’ve sent a mail to you but no answer from you
July 29th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Giuss,
I have sent you two messages. Perhaps your return email address is set incorrectly.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Hi, i’d like to get one too. Thanks guys, in advance.
You
September 26th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
hmm.. i suppose i am not too late for this..
am in india though!
;)
jayesh
September 27th, 2007 at 1:01 am
Jayesh,
No the program is still going on. I am currently giving away Arduino compatible Bare Bones Boards for articles which get published at uCHobby.
November 19th, 2007 at 3:44 am
dfowler, i’m a guy come from Hong Kong. i dont have any website or blog talking about electronic, but is that ok for me to send you an article talking about my final year project? because my final year project is a artwork that is related to electronic. seems Arduino maybe useful for me in my artwork.
Unx
November 22nd, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Unx,
Sure we love to get article submissions. If we use your article we can send you a Adafruit Boarduino kit. Your article needs to be of interest to electronic hobbyist and should have links to additional informaiton and pictures to show your work.
November 28th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
“I plan to do a write up for a simple RS232/TTL adaptor which would be easy to put together. If someone beats me to it, they will get a free kit”
What if I just link to a write up?
http://www.uchobby.com/index.php/2007/06/11/ttl-to-rs232-adaptor-explained/
November 28th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Brian,
We have Boarduino kits to give away for articles which we publish at uCHobby. The articles have to be of interested to the electronics hobbyist. We especially like articles related to microcontrollers.
Although we don’t have a specific restriction that the article be exclusive, we greatly prefer that the article be new and at least initially available at uCHobby. In the past, I believe we have accepted all but one article in terms of paying out a giveaway item. There has been one that was accepted but not published because it had been published elsewhere several weeks earlier.
Ultimately we decide whether to accept an article based on several factors. Uniqueness, Quality of content, level of work required to publish, level of electronics hobby interest, number of pictures and external links for information (more is better for pictures and links, within reason). We also consider whether or not we need an article at the time, we like to have something new every few days. If we were short on articles, we might run one that otherwise would not have been used.
So in short, we publish articles that are of interest to the electronics hobby community. We want to provide a place where people can publish this kind of work and we reward those that do.
We also do giveaways for links on electronics related personal sites. Ideally this link should be a general supportive link, rather then a mention in a related article. The idea is that you would include any useful links in your articles without regard to whether you were being rewarded for that link.
uCHobby does not claim ownership of the article. We do require that any submitted article fall under the overall license of the site. All material on uCHobby is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license. So in effect, if you submit an article, that is the license you are granting to uCHobby and the public in general.
December 18th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
hi I have set up a sub-forum dedicated to the Arduino (because I think it deserves it) and have included links to a few sites that would be useful to it.. this one included..
take a looksee: http://bonsharde.bounceme.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=33
its young but it will fill up with much more things in no time
Does it count for anything?
Hope it will be of use..
January 6th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Hi again. I was wondering if this giveaway is still going on.. since I have received no reply to my above comment including a link to my forum section that is arduino related with a direct link to this site.
I was wondering if it warranted a free atmega168 for the link
or am I to late?
Bng. http://bonsharde.bounceme.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=33
January 6th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Bongmaster,
Yes we still do the giveaways. I have tried to send you an email but have yet to receive a reply. Perhaps the address you used here is not correct. Please send an email directly to me at dfowler@uchobby.com
January 7th, 2008 at 5:54 am
thnx
I was wondering if this was a dead thread 
will send email right away
January 18th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Hey Guys,
For all those who are in India, If you are looking out for Arduino Platform, check out www.techsouls.com/Projects/arduino.php. Using Arduino design files (more precisely Boarduino design files) we have manufactured FLEXI - Arduino Compatible. (of course, the source is released under creative commons license) Check it out… Its real cool.
- Team TECHSOULS.
January 19th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
got mine in post today
thnx 
January 25th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I want one!!!
More to show off with, my YARR-Duino expresso machine!!!
January 27th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Tyler,
Send in an article about your project. If it gets published here at uCHobby we will send you a kit.
David
February 26th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
sorry my forum went splodge so i have to rebuild.. here is the link to the new electronics section (under reconstruction)
http://bonsharde.bounceme.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=10
ignore the old link
Bng.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:54 am
I use an Arduino Diecimila under linux using shell
scripts I have developed. See my website, 207.14.167.161.
Not 24/7, only works when my PC is booted. Full IO and
PWM control, AD readings scaled to mV and formatted for
easy import to most spreadsheets. Modular/Expandable.
March 19th, 2008 at 6:11 am
I want one i want to try using microcontrollers (i haven’t used before)
March 24th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Several of the articles on our site have useful information on what to look for when buying electronic components. Some articles are simply informational. Hope you enjoy them!
http://www.sourceresearch.com/NewsLetter-Archive-Articles.cfm
April 11th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
hello dfowler, im really inspired with your topic TTL to RS232, though litlle points wasnt clear to me cos im not really a PC pro. im doin a project and visited some sites, and even tried to post my problem.and somebody linked here to me http://www.edaboard.com/ftopic305755.html. I tried to use the circuit you’ve shown (http://www.uchobby.com/index.php/2007/06/11/ttl-to-rs232-adaptor-explained/) with my project, but i feel upset when it doesnt work. I just think that maybe the parts i used is not compatible in the circuit or maybe my project really isnt compatible with each circuitry. As of now, im still following topic and some links in here that could help me solving my problem.
April 14th, 2008 at 6:57 am
dfowler, i have writen an article which is published in www.electronics-lab.com it was published there because it was one of the entries for the contest i just want to know if it can be accepted to published here and i will get an Adafruit Boarduino kit
April 14th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Joseph,
The intention with our submitted articles is to give hobbyist a place to publish an article and to reward them for choosing to do it at uCHobby. While we don’t require exclusive publishing of an article, it does need to be published at uCHobby before it is published elsewhere. We need this limitation, we could not send free parts to everyone that has an article published someone on the net.
I removed your comment with the link to the article becase the link was not to a valid page. While it would be OK to link to your project in a comment here, I prefer that you post it in a comment to a related article. This way people who are looking for simular projects will find it.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
@ dfowler
what are the items available for the links?
August 5th, 2008 at 12:38 am
Joseph,
Information about the options and giveaway program are on the page at the link below.
http://www.uchobby.com/index.php/giveaway-program/
David