Recently the Arduino has been making its way into the skies. ArduSat is a project to build and launch an Arduino-powered satellite into space. Here’s a video describing the project:
A little closer to Earth, Michael Doornbos, N4LNX and founder of Evadot, is working on an Arduino-based board for using in balloon payloads. The unit is called FireFly and features wireless capabilities, a data acquisition and storage subsystem, and is solar power ready. It’s intended to pack a lot of functionality in one easy-to-use unit and save time and effort for those building payload computers for high altitude balloon experiments.
Here’s a short video showing reception of data bursts from a FireFly on a Yaesu FT-857:
This project is really timely considering the recent increase in interest in balloon experiments in amateur radio.
Radio Artisan 