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Balloon Board

The MDP team has been working with industry and individuals to develop a new low-powered micro-controller for release as an open hardware design. The system is based on a Balloon 3 Xscale board that has been developed to hopefully be useful to both teaching and industry. A provisional specification is available, - specification (400k PDF) and more information about the project can be found on the MDP website and the BalloonBoard.org website.

The Balloon 3 board is running a version of Linux based on the 2.6.25 distribution by Toby Churchill Limited. Access to the board is via a wireless network card inserted into the Compact Flash socket of the board, via a serial connection or USB.

The board currently being used at CUED for a robotics course and undergraduate projects is accessed via a wireless connection, with the serial port being used to read the balloon's terminal output.

Balloon 3 boards and associated kits are now available from a new company, iendian, please see the MDP website for further details.

Balloon 2 Boards can be ordered from Aleph One in a variety of different build options.