Like I said, I have always been a closet hardware junkie. I've been watching the emerging prototyping platform like Arduino and Raspberry Pi but never had a really good reason (ok, excuse) to spend some time and money on it. The pros and cons came down to one simple item...price. It looks the the Raspberry Pi is almost a stand alone PC, but it is much more expensive than the Arduino. Looking at the various options, and pricing them on ebay, I decided that the Arduino Mega was the best bang for the buck. ebay has tons of listings for under $20 and this has a bunch of extra pins that the Uno model doesn't have.I bid on "Hiduino ATmega2560-16AU + ATMEGA16U2 + USB Cable For 2012 ARDUINO's MEGA 2560 R3" not really paying attention to the first word of the sentence.
...and won... for $16.50 and Free Shipping
Ok, so it's a knockoff. It's an open source platform anyway, right?
Shipping via China Post... Hmmm... This could be a while...
Oh well plenty of prep to do, right? I need a breakout board, servo motors, wires, etc.
Wait!!! Slow down. This is a project for you and the kids.
But wait, that full color 8x8 panel looks cool... Two clicks later, I'm the owner of an led panel for $4.99 and $1.00 shipping.
Mini Breadboard... click click
Jumper Cables... click click
Now, I think I've got enough to get started. Now time to wait for a slow boat from China.
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