.NET Gadgeteer

Don't know how many of you remember Clint’s post on MSR's .NET Gadgeteer system, but it looks like they have open sourced all the libraries and hardware interface designs over on http://gadgeteer.codeplex.com/. It looks like a nice system that has several benefits over other modular systems such as the Arduino shields, especially in education.

Clint, how about popping over to see Colin Miller again for an update on .NetMF and Gadgeteer?

Very interesting. I didn't realize it uses WPF for the display module.

Also, does anyone know where to buy the hardware?

I'm doing software engineering right now but my major was in electronics, so I find this stuff interesting. Not that you need any electronics background for this apparently, but still. I used to design/build a lot of electronic circuits a long time ago...

EDIT: OK this page says they are working with hardware vendors to develop kits, so it looks like it will still be some time before one can get your hands on any hardware

@BitFlipper: WPF like would be a better way to describe the UI side of things.

Until the hardware people start making boards on this, you could always have a play with the .NET MF, after all Gadgeteer is basically a bunch of libraries on top of NetMF 4.1 as I understand it plus some hardware specs for interfacing the modules. So if you want to have a play have a look at some of the boards out there already like the ones from GHI http://www.tinyclr.com/compare/

If I can find some time I think a nice idea is to build an arduino like shield for the existing netmf boards that map their IO to the socket types for Gadgeteer so you can use the Gadgeteer modules if you want (when people start making them).

@Clint:If you get chance to talk to him, it would be intrasting to see what the uptake from the hardware vendors has been like, I know this is kind of standing on the toes of systems like (Net/Ar)duino and the system GHI already has, but I think as a total solution this has been thought out better.  Also be intreasted to know about the value add tooling like the visual designers they've mentioned before, have they made any progress with those they can share.  One final thing, their douments mention using VSIX to to package the modules, was wondering if they've thought to use nuget, seems to fit the use case better than VSIX?