Wide-ranging fields have been revolutionized — or even made possible — by microcontrollers, including industrial robotics, automotive engineering, special F/X, irrigation, interactive exhibits, motor control, and all kinds of research. For a long time these powerful chips, and the tools required to use them, were so specialized that few people could explore their potential without a formal background in electronics and software engineering.

That’s changing, but the effort required to program a chip and design a circuit is still a barrier that excludes countless creative, imaginative people. Fortunately, new software and tool communities are making microcontroller programming easier and cheaper. Meanwhile, the chips themselves have reached a new level of power, 32-bit designs with built-in networking capabilities. All the elements are in place for the next revolution in general-purpose controller boards: a flexible design that takes advantage of the latest chips but is easier to work with. A controller kit that’s fully programmable, and a great platform for shared code, but that's also fun and configurable right out of the box, without any programming. An open source hardware standard that’s visible enough to attract a healthy developer community, and inspiring enough to make it grow.

The MAKE Controller Kit

Last year, MAKE magazine approached MakingThings to create the MAKE Controller Kit, a next-generation family of modular, programmable controller boards. We were delighted, and we’re even more delighted to announce that the kit is now available.

Since 1998, MakingThings has been producing and selling a range of controller boards to an even wider range of customers. Before our partnership with MAKE, we had been thinking about how to take advantage of the latest 32-bit microcontrollers. Once it was a go, we immediately began making laundry lists of desirable features, and collecting suggestions from people using existing products. We are very pleased with the way the MAKE Controller Kit has turned out. It is an absolute delight to program, and connecting real devices to it is very simple. For the future we look forward to programming more and more functionality into the platform, and seeing what others think of to do with it. Further, we hope the kit attracts a whole new audience to microcontroller programming, and to an overall greater understanding of electronics and engineering.