One Dollar Board: $ 1 fee for teaching children and teenagers the basics of electronics and programming

Back in March last year, the BBC company developed the Micro: bit microcomputer, designed to teach UK students the basics of electronics and programming. About a million such PCs were produced, about a million, and in March of the same year they were sent to schools. The cost of the fee was $ 5.

It would seem that the price is minimal, and it is impossible to create something similar for a lower price. But Brazilian developers decided to prove that nothing is impossible. They created their own learning mini-PC, the cost of which for the buyer will be only ... $ 1. Project materials will be available to everyone under a Creative Commons license.


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Now the project is released on Indiegogo, the developers hope to raise $ 50,000. The basis of the mini-PC is an 8-pin microcontroller, along with a number of secondary components. System characteristics are as follows:

• 8-bit processor;
• 8 KB of flash memory, expandable to 256 KB;
• 6 GPIO;
• USB port;
• 2 LEDs;
• Reset button;
• Extensions - you can add ESP8266 WiFi, 24C256 RAM, and TI L293 chips;
• Power - via USB, 5V;
• 4 mounting holes compatible with Arduino UNO and other cards;
• The size is 86 * 54 mm.

As for the processor, then most likely, this is one of the Atmel TinyAVR microcontrollers. The cost of Atmel AVR ATtiny85 MCU, for example, is only $ 0.77 when ordering from 1,000 pieces.


Atmel AVR ATtiny85 MCU

The board is designed in such a way that the user can remove two sites, receiving USB Type A for power supply (this moment is on the video). The developers point out that the mini-card can be used for many purposes, but the main thing is to educate children and teenagers.



The software part of the board - Arduino IDE , distributed freely, with a large community of developers.

The cost of pre-order fees on Indiegogo - $ 1 , as reported above. True, you have to pay for shipping, but it does not depend on the developers. If the developers collect the planned amount, the fee will begin to ship to customers in October of this year.