MiniSix Microcontroller

The MiniSix is the smaller surface mount version of the Number Six microcontroller. It was designed to teach art students about microcontrollers, interactivity, and electronics. The MiniSix is a little more difficult to assemble but is intended for those who have some previous experience or have assembled the original Number Six but want an introduction to working with surface mount components and a smaller more mobile form factor to design around. It's only $20 in components, is open source, and uses open source software for programming. It uses a very popular chip (AVR) so there's a good code library available for it.

The board is designed for a vertical stacking strategy using a 40 pin Hirose connector. The core board is the MiniSix microcontroller while additional boards can be designed to stack on to the main board and add various functionalities. In this example we have a bluetooth communication module that stacks on to the mini six giving the ability for bluetooth serial communication to laptops, cell phones or other Bluetooth enabled devices.

The Atmel ATmega32 microcontroller of the AVR 8-Bit RISC series was chosen for this development because it is available in a small Thin Quad Flat Pack (TQFP) surface mount package. It includes 8 channels for analogue to digital conversion which is useful or reading a variety of sensors. The board was designed as a double-sided surface mount board to create a compact design capable of being incorporated as a low profile, non-intrusive component. It measures approximately 26mm x 26mm.