Mobile Python: Rapid Prototyping of Applications on the Mobile Platform

11.4. ArduinoBT Micro-Controller Board

As mentioned in Chapter 7, it is possible to connect your phone to a micro-controller. The 'ArduinoBT board' (Figure 11.7) is an example of a micro-controller board with Bluetooth extension chip that offers serial port communication.

Arduino is an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple I/O board and a development environment for writing Arduino applications (www.arduino.cc). The Arduino programming language is an implementation of Wiring (http://wiring.org.co), based on Processing (www.processing.org). It is easy to learn and quick to program. This makes it an ideal complement for PyS60 to do rapid prototyping of physical computing applications. It can serve as a mediating technology between sensors, motors and other actuators, providing access to the physical world.

Figure 11-7. ArduinoBT board and Nokia N80

The mobile phone acts as a gateway device to the Internet giving access to the digital and virtual world. As the Arduino board is small, light and battery-powered, it is suitable to be taken anywhere, like the mobile phone itself.

In this section, we describe the steps to connect a phone over Bluetooth to the ArduinoBT board. The PyS60 code is given, as well as the Arduino code that runs on the board. The Arduino software tool has a built-in editor for writing the Arduino code. When you press an upload button, the ...