Indiegogo is committed to accessibility. If you have difficulty using our site, please contact support@indiegogo.com for assistance or view our accessibility notice by clicking here
The project team has a working demo, not the final product. Their ability to begin production may be affected by product development or financial challenges.
Arrow has reviewed this campaign's electronic and/or software design and verified that it is feasible for manufacturing.Learn More
Overview
We've reimagined how to design and build electronics. Create almost anything from a USB powered simple sensor to a monster 2 kilowatt robot. The system is perfect for one-off projects or product development. Spend less time going from prototype to production. Come and check it out and let us know what you think!
Atomo is a complete system for building electronic things with four parts: Control, IO, Power, and Connector.
Focus on your project instead of running extra wires for power or running out of IO. We designed in flexibility and ample system resources.
Reuse and remix your system. Anything you need is already there to handle most problems. Solve larger problems by adding more resources instead of starting over.
IO and Power
The heart of any electronics project is how you connect it to the rest of the world. Each IO module has a useful amount of IO and Power available for most applications and can be doubled up on our 8-module connector board.
Connect It Together
With all the IO and power, we need something to tie them together in useful ways. The connectors extend controllers with features like bus multiplexing and multi-channel clock generation. Drive a fan or keep track of the system temperature with the built-in thermistor.
Power It Up!
All electronics need power to work. Besides USB power, we've designed a few different options to get you started with any project. There are options from 13W to over 2000W. Power sources include 5.5mm DC Barrel Plug, POE, and ATX. All have 3.3V, 5V, and 12V power on tap. Higher power options use the input voltage for driving motors, heaters, and other devices.
Raspberry Pi Compatible
We've made all of our controllers compatible with the HAT connector on the Raspberry Pi. This lets you program on the Pi and update the controller. Or just use the Atomo as a modular HAT. This is perfect for ROS robots or any system where you have the Pi for processing or interface but need more power, IO, or real time control.
We even have two new Raspberry Pi HAT combined Controller and Connector boards for 2 IO module systems. This is perfect for POE powered Raspberry Pi applications or a simple Pi powered robot. The above board is the high powered version with our standard 34-pin Power module and the below is the low power version that features 2 28-pin IO modules and is powered by the Pi itself.
Both of these boards feature an onboard ARM Cortex m0+ NXP KE02 44-pin MCU and can even be used by themselves for more simple applications. Flashing the MCU is via the Pi, but can operate without a Pi once it is flashed.
Adaptable
The Atomo system is not just good for our controllers, it is possible to use existing Arduinos or other boards with an adapter to benefit from our modular design and features. Let us know if this is something you think is important!
The Big Picture
Starting with this line of hardware is a good foundation, but we want to build on that.
Software
Getting everything connected is just the start with making robots or real-time systems. It takes efficient firmware to get everything done smoothly. For IO modules we develop, we will also develop the required low-level drivers using DMA and other more efficient techniques. This lets you focus on building your design instead of how to read sensors fast enough. We will have board profiles with standard pin and clock configurations so you can get up and running quickly using KDS and MCUXpresso (seeing if we can be fully integrated there). We are also looking into ARM mbed compatibility, RTOS integration, or other ways to give you a robust development framework.
Prototype to Production
Being located in Hong Kong, we run into many people that are building hardware products for the first time. A common story is using Arduino to get a working prototype then scrapping the original prototype work to get to a production design. We've designed our system to cut this extra step. Each board maximizes cost and function using production ready components with good documentation. The modular approach also allows for easy translation into a final schematic design. We plan to offer cost-effective design and manufacturing services to bring your prototypes to market.
Practical Learning
More students are now building robots or building projects for science or entertainment with the rise of STEAM emphasis. Our boards are more robust with protective components for small mistakes that can fry a system and we will be looking at improving the system to make it even better suited for education. We plan to create a lab series of IO modules and curriculum for electronics instruction or other science applications.
Project Timeline
The full production design of our launch line is complete. We made a small batch of pre-production prototypes and are testing them now. It will take around 4-6 weeks for some components to arrive after the campaign, depending on the quantity we need to make. Ideally we will have production start in early May. Production time will take one to two weeks with final approval times and packout. Production will be in batches if we have a large demand, but the schedule will not change significantly.
Campaign Goals
We think we've got something unique that will help people make cool things with less effort. To kick off production, we want to get 100 units of orders for each controller board, with $5,000 to cover that production. We would love to do more, but can do a production run with that if we need.
The Perks
2 Module Controller
You will receive a store credit coupon and a 10% discount on the same order. This is enough to cover the K22F OCX64 (2 IO module) control module with standard shipping.
4 Module Controller with Network Expansion Card
You will receive a store credit coupon and a 10% discount on the same order. This is enough to cover the K64F OCX98 (4 IO module) control module with standard shipping.
8 Module Controller with Network Expansion Card
You will receive a store credit coupon and a 10% discount on the same order. This is enough to cover the K64F OCX164 (8 IO module) control module with standard shipping.
Well, the internal team is really just one person, Jon Buford.
"I have over 20 years of experience with mechatronics and consumer products. I love to make products that are simple and easy to use. I've been able to do most of the core development and marketing myself, but I've gotten help from consultants and the teams at Arrow in the US and Hong Kong to get Atomo this far. I've kept the team small to keep the overhead low and will be looking to grow it after the launch to include experts in hardware, software, manufacturing, and education. I want to make it easier for people to develop new hardware solutions, and want these same tools for my own use too."
Risks & Challenges
The main risk for us now is not generating sales to cover more software development. We can do the production of the final hardware designs with our campaign goal. To get the most out of the hardware, we need to create low-level driver firmware and complete system solutions. All the hardware has been functionally tested to work as it is.
Production and shipping of the hardware is low risk with a complete design. There are no other items that the boards depend on to ship.
Help Spread The Word!
If you think Atomo could be helpful for you or someone you know, please help us get the word out by sharing this campaign with them or the world at large.
We are looking for people to help us understand the educational space and what the needs are there. We are always happy to talk with media, retail distributors, investors, or anyone that wants to give us feedback or would like to work with us.
FAQ
Can you show a working example of using Atomo?
What is the difference between Atomo and Arduino? Atomo has been designed as a complete system for building things including practical power, cooling, and mounting. We've tried to make it as usable as possible by designing it that way from the start, so the connectors and pinouts are clear and simple, and there aren't any odd legacy design problems that you will need to work around. On the other hand, if you are building simple things, Arduino is a great tool to build things with and has a huge number of different controllers and form factors for doing that along with software and examples of the use. It is possible we may create an adapter to use some of the Arduino controllers with Atomo, so let us know if that is important to you.
What is the difference between Atomo and Raspberry Pi? The Pi and compatible Single Board Computers are exactly that, they are a complete computer on a card that you can use in the same way that you might a laptop or desktop computer. The Pi also has a set of pins that extend out with IO, power, and other bus interfaces (how chips or other systems talk with each other). But, the Pi is not a microcontroller, so it doesn't have any ADC (analog to digital converter) pins and it is more likely to be running more complicated software that may not be as real time as you need for many applications. So, that is why we made our controllers be able to connect with the Pi interface to work as a microcontroller extension of a Pi, taking care of the low level work while a Pi does the heavy processing and interfacing with people. It would make sense to do an adapter that makes it possible to use the Pi to control the modules directly. It looks like the 40-pin connector would have enough IO to do 4 modules. We could put a small microcontroller on it to handle the ADC duty and talk with the Pi over SPI or I2C. Let us know if this adapter is important to you.
How does Atomo stack up to the FRDM boards or tower system from NXP? Short answer, Atomo is like an affordable tower system that handles more power and scales up and down. The FRDM boards are more comparable to Arduino boards, and are pin-compatible with some of them, so you could use Arduino shields with them. In general, our design approach was to not put extra sensors or other things on the controller board that are not difficult to add or that would add a lot of cost without being used by many people. The typical demo boards, like the FRDM line, will usually add at least an accelerometer or other sensor to be able to do something out of the box that is not just blink some lights. We would rather put things like that on a module so that you don't lose those valuable IO to things that you are not using.
What else is exceptional about Atomo? Let's see, most of the connector boards have a clock generator chip that can send a unique clock frequency to each IO module based on the main controller's clock to keep it synced. This allows for putting small microcontrollers on modules or other chips that need a clock input without having to put a separate clock source on the module. For example, on our stepper modules, we are clocking the stepper drive ICs this way. This also means that we can operate the SPI communication at a faster rate than if it is not synced to the main controller.
The power is pretty unique. We've allowed for pretty much any range of power that projects might use. This means that it is easier to set things up and that there are likely to be less random issues due to bad connections or incorrectly sized hookups.
It is a lot easier to debug new things. If you think you might have accidentally blown out input pins on the controller, you can at least swap modules around and see if others are working, or if there is something not right with your module. Also, dividing things up in modules just makes it easier to build new things. It forces you to break your design down into smaller units, so it becomes less complex.
When will you make the controllers mbed compatible? Technically, they already are compatible hardware-wise. We still need to go through the final setup for the software side of things and submit the boards for testing at ARM. The OpenSDA/DAPLink software works and we have been flashing the boards using that USB interface. It sounds like we may have mbed integrated and approved by the time we start shipping, but it depends on how long the process at ARM takes. If you really want mbed compatibility, please let us know so we can tell ARM it is important to you.
Is Atomo Open Source Hardware? Short answer, not yet, we would rather wait until we at least are shipping before we release the design files and other things into the wild. We do think that it is important for these tools to be open source for usability and also to give the community what it needs to create wonderful things. We will release the interface details for the modules and schematics as soon as we can, even before shipping, as they are finalized and cleaned up for release.
ARM Cortex m4 Controller Module with 8 IO module support plus expansion header for connecting to Raspberry Pi or others and Ethernet expansion card to activate the integrated networking. PLUS a 10% coupon for our store to complete your system with Connector, IO, and Power Modules.
Included Items
K64F 8 Module Controller
Ethernet+USB Expansion Module
Estimated Shipping
June 2017
33 claimed
Ships worldwide.
2IO Module RPi HAT Low Power
$9 USD
This Raspberry Pi HAT is powered by the 40-pin Pi connector. It has its own 44-pin NXP KE02 ARM Cortex m0+ controller that adds six ADC pins and other goodies to the Pi functionality and is 5V tolerant. This is our first combined controller and connector board for more simple or compact applications.
Included Items
RPiHAT 2IO KE02MCU CNTR LP
Estimated Shipping
July 2017
2 claimed
Ships worldwide.
2IO Module RPi HAT High Power
$15 USD
This Raspberry Pi 40-pin HAT features 2 40-pin IO module connectors plus a 34-pin Power module connector. It has a NXP KE02 44-pin ARM Cortex m0+ on board to provide 6 ADC pins plus other goodies for expanding the Pi. You can even use this as a stand alone controller without a Pi for simple applications.
Included Items
RPiHAT 2IO KE02MCU CNTR HP
Estimated Shipping
July 2017
5 claimed
Ships worldwide.
2 Module Controller
$24 USD
ARM Cortex m4 Controller Module with 2 IO module support plus expansion header for connecting to Raspberry Pi or others. PLUS a 10% coupon for our store to complete your system with Connector, IO, and Power Modules.
Included Items
K22F 2 Module Controller
Estimated Shipping
June 2017
0 claimed
Ships worldwide.
4 Module Network Controller
$39 USD
ARM Cortex m4 Controller Module with 4 IO module support plus expansion header for connecting to Raspberry Pi or others and Ethernet expansion card to activate the integrated networking. PLUS a 10% coupon for our store to complete your system with Connector, IO, and Power Modules.
