We love Arduino. Those Italians know how to design an excellent microcontroller platform and share it with the world. And Mr. Kimio Kosaka’s “One-Chip-Arduino” project inspired us to develop the Ardweeny; the smallest Arduino you can solder yourself with through-hole components! And remember folks this is a kit so some assembly is required and batteries are not included :).

We’ve designed a backpack printed-circuit board the fits on top of an Atmel ATmega328P straddling it. Solder the pins to the microcontroller’s legs, and you’re ready to join the open-source hardware revolution!

Fit this little guy pretty much anywhere, just add 2.7V-5.5V for power and you are on your way. We do recommend hooking up a 3.3V or 5V voltage regulator for stable sensor readings but the choice is yours.

Features:

• Fully Arduino-compatible! (Select “Arduino Uno” when programming)
• Stacks onto the back of an ATmega328 chip (included)
• Takes same 28-pin footprint as the microcontroller itself!
• Features Pin-13 LED and reset button
• Simple construction – only 7 parts plus pins & PCB!
• Ideal for breadboard applications
• Accessory Backpacks available!

Note: Requires external USB-to-TTL FTDI-type cable or adapter, like the Solarbotics TTLyFTDI or we also have the SparkFun Simple FTDI Adapter (parts 50512 or 50510) available as well.

Also Note: This product now comes with the Arduino 1.0 optiboot bootloader programmed into it. When programming via the Arduino IDE please select “Arduino Uno” under the Tools -> “Board” category instead of “Arduino Duemilanove w/ ATmega328”. This bootloader not only has faster upload speeds but is now backwards compatible with products that use a FTDI USB-TTL converter chip.

Interesting side-note: So we heard you liked to Arduino while you Arduino, so we put an… ok, nevermind. Did you know that you can mount your Ardweeny into the socket of a standard ‘328-based Arduino board, and use the board to program the Ardweeny? Yup, the crystal on the main board co-exists with the one on the Ardweeny well enough to let it happen! Handy for when you need to reburn a boot-loader, or you’re short on FTDI adapters!