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282 Part III — More Complex Interfacing
FIGURE 13-17: Programming the Arduino board
Another inexpensive and interesting approach to programming AVR microcontrollers is the
Atmel AVR Butterfly, a $20 credit-card sized board with a high-powered AVR controller and lots
of I/O like a beeper and an LCD display. SmileyMicros (http://smileymicros.com/) pro-
duces a great beginner’s book titled C Programming for Microcontrollers that uses WinAVR and
the Butterfly.
Hooking Arduino Up to Roomba
Like the Basic Stamp, the Arduino board operates at 5V logic levels and has a built-in 7805
voltage regulator that can take the Roomba Vpwr line and convert it to 5V. Figure 13-18 is the
schematic of a basic Roomba-to-Arduino connection. The Arduino serial TX/RX lines (digital
pins 0 and 1) are connected to the Roomba serial lines. Figure 13-19 shows the circuit wired up
on a breadboard that plugs into the Arduino header sockets. It’s very straightforward.
