Edmond Lau, July 2011

introducing

Open Source Hardware

WHAT IS OPEN SOURCE HARDWARE?

What is Open Source Hardware?

• Open source hardware (OSHW) consists of physical artifacts of technology designed and offered in the same manner as free and open source software (FOSS). Open source hardware is part of the open source culture movement and applies a like concept to a variety of components. The term usually means that information about the hardware is easily discerned. Hardware design (i.e. mechanical drawings, schematics, bill of materials, PCB layout data, HDL source code and integrated circuit layout data) in addition to the software that drives the hardware are all released with the FOSS approach.

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_hardware

HARDWARE EXAMPLES

Arduino

• Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

http://www.arduino.cc/

BeagleBoard

• The BeagleBoard is a low-power, low-cost single-board computer produced by Texas Instruments in association with Digi-Key. The BeagleBoard was designed with open source development in mind, and as a way of demonstrating the Texas Instrument's OMAP3530 system-on-a-chip. The board was developed by a small team of TI engineers as an educational board that could be used in colleges around the world to teach open source hardware and open source software capabilities.

http://beagleboard.org/

Android Open Accessory Kit

• The Android 3.1 platform (also backported to Android 2.3.4) introduces Android Open Accessory support, which allows external USB hardware (an Android USB accessory) to interact with an Android-powered device in a special "accessory" mode.

http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/usb/adk.h

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Others

http://www.buglabs.net/ http://www.makershed.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=70

http://netduino.com/

REAL LIFE EXAMPLES

Arduino Projects

http://hacknmod.com/hack/top-40-arduino-projects-of-the-web/

Poor man’s NFC High Speed Photography Wiimote + RC Car

RGB Door Lock UAV RFID Access Control

Google I/O 2011 Keynote Day 1

http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/10/google-announces-android-open-accessory-standard-arduino-based/

Giant-sized Labyrinth

Open Accessory Kit integrated with exercise bike, shared performance data and gamification!

Technology innovation is starting to explode and having open-source material out there really helps this explosion. You get students and researchers involved and you get people coming through and building start ups based on open source products.

Tim Berners-Lee - World Wide Web Founder