Express Yourself
The new RTK Express released this week, along with new machine learning products and a way to connect an original NES controller to Qwiic!
Hello, everyone! It's Friday, and that means even more new products - starting with the SparkFun RTK Express! This new, enclosed module is perfect for getting out into the wilds around you for all your surveying needs. Following that we have a more economical version of the Oak-1 Camera from Luxonis, an MIT App Inventor Bundle from Elektor, and a board from SparkX that can bridge an original Nintendo Entertainment System controller to the Qwiic Connect System! Now let's jump in and take a closer look at all of our new products.
Released Wednesday, the SparkFun RTK Express is an easy to use GNSS receiver for centimeter-level positioning. Perfect for surveying, logging, and all types of post processing, this preprogrammed device can also be used for autonomous driving, navigation, asset tracking and any other application where there is a clear view of the sky. The RTK Express can also be used as a base station. With the press of a button, two RTK Expresses can be used to create an RTK system capable of 14mm horizontal positional accuracy. The built-in Bluetooth® connection via an ESP32 WROOM enables the user to use the RTK Express with their choice of GIS application on a phone or tablet. The built in battery allows for over five hours of field use and is compatible with common USB battery banks.
The SparkFun RTK Express is currently available for pre-order. The first batch of orders are expected to be fulfilled by late June and in the order they are received.
The Oak-1 is an all-in-one machine vision solution. It’s a 4-trillion-operations-per-second AI powerhouse that performs your AI models on-board, so that your host is free to do whatever you need it to do. Its integrated 12 MegaPixel camera module communicates over an on-board 2.1 Gbps MIPI interface directly to the Myriad X, which ingests this data and performs neural inference on it, returning the results over USB.
The Elektor MIT App Inventor Bundle is a kit built to help learn about developing apps for Android compatible mobile devices using the MIT App Inventor online development environment. MIT App Inventor projects can be in either standalone mode or use an external processor. In standalone mode, the developed application runs only on the mobile device (e.g. Android). In external processor-based applications, the mobile device communicates with an external microcontroller-based processor, such as Raspberry Pi, Arduino, ESP8266, ESP32, etc.
The QwiicNES features an NES Controller connector and a row of 0.1" output pins. Press a button on the controller and the corresponding pin goes from LOW to HIGH. It's that easy! Don't want to give up eight GPIO on your project? Then connect The QwiicNES over I²C using a Qwiic cable. The I²C address of The QwiicNES is software configurable which means you can hookup over 100 on a single I²C bus!
Although small in size, KW4-Z5F roller microswitches are rated for controlling electrical loads ranging from logic level (computer based circuits) to power duty switching (up to 16.1 A and 250 Vac).
That's it for this week! As always, we can't wait to see what you make! Shoot us a tweet @sparkfun, or let us know on Instagram or Facebook. We’d love to see what projects you’ve made! Please be safe out there, be kind to one another, and we'll see you next week with even more new products!
