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Tempted by one of these for a play, might make nice replacements for some wireless sensor stuff I do...save me from the horrors of TinyOS* if anyone's familiar!
*and intel x-scale processor manuals. *shudder*
@joemarshall I find the arduino something of a confusion though. It really is just a micro dev board (which are available) and some easy to access software. Programming a PIC in C is barely any more work, has the potential for even lower power use, smaller packaging etc while maintaining the RT capabilities. I have no more trouble teaching students how to use a PIC in C than I do teaching them to use an arduino, so I'm not really sure where it gains it's popularity.
Pi does seem, on the surface, to be more software based and does have the added complexities of running an OS, but I'm not sure that'll be a problem.
If you look at the bulk of the arduino uses, advanced users laugh at the fact that THAT is overkill for what it's used for - you could do the same task with analogue components or some basic discrete logic. I don't see many people using the Pi to do much more complex work, meaning it's super-overkill, but at least based around an OS people may have had some contact with.
Hard to decide. The market will answer I'm sure.
Quite excited by this...will be buying a couple to teach my kids stuff.
@joemarshall I find the arduino something of a confusion though. It really is just a micro dev board (which are available) and some easy to access software. Programming a PIC in C is barely any more work, has the potential for even lower power use, smaller packaging etc while maintaining the RT capabilities. I have no more trouble teaching students how to use a PIC in C than I do teaching them to use an arduino, so I'm not really sure where it gains it's popularity.
The big thing about the arduino is the community that they've built around it and the standardisation - the standard format, libraries for everything, a library of easy to attach hardware made by a multitude of people to do most things you want.
Yes it's possible to do similar things on the PIC, but first you have to choose your development board from all the 6 million that are available, (which are often more expensive than an arduino board), then say you want to interface with a GSM modem, you have to find a GSM modem chip, hope someone has built a breakout board for it, or design your own circuit board, work out how to connect the modem board to your PIC development board, work out how to talk to the modem over serial etc. To do the same on arduino, you buy an arduino, buy the GSM shield (from anyone who happens to make one), plug it on top, and use the standard library to talk to it.
The same is true with the software, you just install one program, and plug the arduino in, and as if by magic you have a full development system, complete with a bunch of libraries for useful things built in, and many more available.
Another bonus of the arduino development boards is that they are open source hardware - this is great if you're making anything real, because if you make something, then some point later, you decide you want to make another one, chances are someone will still be making the board, whereas with your PIC board, it is quite likely you'll end up having to buy something slightly different (at least I can't find the particular PIC dev board I've previously seen for sale anywhere now).
It also integrates very nicely into the eco-system of 'Processing' or Max/MSP on a computer + arduino for the hardware end of things, which arty types seem to like.
Oh and if you get stuck with something, there is a big community of people who will quite likely have done it on Arduino. So you can find example code / circuits etc. very easily.
You also don't have to solder to do most Arduino things - even quite advanced things like GSM modems, GPS connection etc. can be done without any soldering. That might not be an issue for an electronics type, but a lot of people are really quite scared of soldering.