I am really excited about IOT and electronic DIY stuff and that brings me to dig more for things like Raspberry Pi, Arduino or any other electronic projects and I find it really fascinating. We have covered a lot of Raspberry Pi and IOT in recent months at fossbytes and recently we found out an exciting Kickstarter project called CHIP which promised to bring a single board computer in just $9. So on my quest for finding cool and exciting electronic projects I discovered Modulo– a simple, modular solution for building powerful electronic devices.  Modulo’s Kickstarter campaign is still running. I have made my contribution and thought to let you know so if also you like you can help them. But why would you or anyone do that? And that’s why we are covering Modulo here which will help you understand how exciting this thing is.
What is Modulo?
Modulo consists of a cluster of smart modules such as sensors, motor drivers and displays that slide into a solid base unit which help us building electronic project with less hassle. It helps create custom electronics for our project without having to design and assemble circuits from scratch!. Isn’t it great? Instead of struggling with breadboard and connecting sensors wires here and there you just to get the right components, plug it in and start focusing on concepts, design and programming cool stuff.
Modulo’s power and flexibility comes from its interchangeable smart modules. Each Modulo has its own little processor to handle its operation and communicate with the controller (If you are familiar with I2C you can correlated how they build it). This vastly simplifies the process of building and programming devices, since we only need to deal with high-level concepts (ie, Get Temperature or Set Motor Speed) not I/O pin mappings, wiring, data sheets, and registers. We can also use modulo recursively yes, you heard it right, in a base modulo board you get to connect up to 8 modules and when that gets over, we can connect another base board.
And not just this once you’ve built your project you can program it in Python on the Pi. It also connects with Arduino and Spark (now Particle).
Erin Tomson is the creator and principal architect of Modulo. She previously worked at Pixar Animation Studios for over 12 years, contributing to Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille before joining Pixar’s internal software group. As a lead engineer, she helped develop Presto, Pixar’s next-generation animation software. Now she’s taking what she learned about building tools for creative technology and applying it to electronics.
I hope you liked the concept of Modulo. Please do share your views in comments. As soon as Modulo is ready we would definitely cover more details and probably with some cool DIY project. Stay aware with technology, Keep following fossBytes!
Recommended: CHIP is the World’s Cheapest Computer and Costs Just $9
