Hardware

Goals

• Hardware used should be easily collected from existing online retailers (e.g. Adafruit, Seeed, Sparkfun).
• Total cost of hardware involved should stay below a $200 USD limit.
• All hardware used should be under an open hardware license. New hardware developed should be released under the CERN OHL.

TODO

Pick an open hardware platform. Currently looking at:

Cubieboard 2

PROS: Native audio ports

CONS: Not as open hardware as imagined. :/

BeagleBone Black

PROS: Open hardware, made in Amurrrica (fuck yeah), small

CONS: Only one USB port, no native audio; USB would have to be split for wifi and USB audio

Raspberry Pi

PROS: Two USB ports, hella open, magnet for SEO

CONS: No native audio, CPU not as powerful as other platforms

DONE: Make it battery-powered

None of the hardware platforms being looked at are designed to run off a battery. They run at 5V and most rechargeable Lithium-ion batteries run at 3.7 volts. Seeed Lipo Rider + 2A 3.7V lipo battery has proven to be a winning combination and was tested on the Beaglebone Black with USB wifi running and connected to internets. Standby battery life is around 4 hours, 20 minutes (lol) but might be extended by disabling some of the hardware not being used (HDMI, etc) and maybe tweaking the kernel a lot.

DONE: Build a speaker

Needed a USB audio adapter since there's no native audio ports on the BBB. Surface transducer (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10917) might be best since that makes it ideal for noisy environments (keeping design for real humans in mind)

Build a microphone

This one from Adafruit seems promising: http://www.adafruit.com/products/1063.