For those of you that can’t make a decision between buying an Arduino and a PIC processor, [Brad] has come up with a novel solution, the PICnDuino. We’ve featured him before with his [Retroball] project, but this time Brad has been full funded on Kickstarter, and is pre-selling boards for delivery in March.

[HAD], specifically I, was fortunate enough to be sent one of the boards to try out early. I’ve worked with an Arduino before, but never a PIC processor, so read on to see if it was actually as easy as the tutorial video (at the end of the article) would have you believe it is to get started.

I was sent both a black board fully populated, as well as several blanks in the various colors pictured below.  After loosely attaching the headers, I found that the oscillator on the bottom makes the board sit up a bit when placed into a breadboard. This is actually a clever design feature to make sit up a bit to allow USB attachment while breadboarded. After a quick physical inspection, the real trick would be seeing if it worked as advertised.

The first challenge for me was that, according to the documentation, this board runs in Windows or a virtualisation environment. I normally run Ubuntu, so, grabbing my wife’s circa 2000 vintage XP notebook, I downloaded and Amicus and Arduino software as explained in the video tutorial. The tutorial really spells out how to get the software running. This would be great for a total beginner, and made it so I didn’t have to even poke around for where to get the software.

The only issue I had connecting to the board(s?)was that I had to manually install the Amicus18 USB driver. I’m a total noob when it comes to the PIC processor, and only have limited experience with the Arduino, but once the driver was updated, it was quite easy to get everything going.

After programming a “blink” sketch using it as an Arduino, I then flipped a switch and opened the Amicus IDE. Programming the PIC was also simple, although I had to use a and modify a program called “LED_Flash” to match the video instead of the “blink” program as described in the tutorial. It was a bit strange to see the built in blinking light for the Arduino still working while the PIC was being programmed, as well as both built-in lights blinking slightly offset while running simultaneously.

The documentation is extremely well done for a product that won’t even be available for delivery until March 2013. I’m really excited to play with it more, and I think it will be a great tool for people to either run two processors simultaneously, or just have the option of learning to program both a PIC and (n) Arduino. So check it out here, and get it shipped worldwide straight out of Australia!

Side note, bonus points if you can tell from the two pictures what kind of computer I used for this review!

We are happy to announce the first wearable kit on the Arduino Store . This kit has been made by Plug’n'Wear specifically for us. All fabrics in this kit are produced in Italy, and strongly related to a textile family business. If you want to get deeper into the story of this product have a look at Riccardo Marchesi presentation (still in Italian, soon to be traslated!) at World Wide Rome 2012.

Read over for Kit’s features

This kit features:

1. 1x Circular Stretch Sensor Designed by Hannah Perner-Wilson, this circular knit stretch sensor works perfect when you need to detect tension in many projects.
2. 2x Textile push button to make easy digital inputs in cloth, scarfs o bags.
3. 2x Spools of Conductive thread, ready to be hooked over a sewing machine
4. 2x Soft potentiometer kit will let you import analog data into your wearable project: this kit includes 1 meter of knitted conductive tape and a metal ring. Watch it in action (see video)
5. 10x 1k ohm resistor
6. 10x 10k ohm resistor
7. 1x Textile perfboard is going to change the way you think of wearable circuits. You can sew or even solder components (SMD & through-hole) on this . It can be easily cut or sewn with a standard sewing machine. Washable. Size: 15 cm x 15 cm (6″ x 6″) / Pitch: 2.54 mm (0.1″)
8. 1x Knitted Coated Copper Tape. Small conductive tape made of coated copper fine wire (112 micron). Flexible, easy to cut, sewable with a standard sewing machine, It can be easily welded ( The coating will melt and tape will be soldered). The surface of this tape has a good insulation thrughout its lenght. Resistance: 107 Ohm/m. Width: 9 mm (0.35″)
9. 1x Analog Textile Press Button, working with a resistive principle (resistance goes down when you press it). It works as a bend sensor as well. By connecting more sensors together it is possible to make a matrix analog switch. Sensitive area 40mm x 40mm (1.57″x1.57″)
10. 2x LilyPad LED Bright White A simple, very bright, 250mcd, white LED LilyPad

source: [arduino store]