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Seeed Studio Electronic Brick Starter Kit Review

Introduction

Robot Sensor Review Score
Quality	Features	Usability	Scalability	Support	Skill Level	Overall
5	5	5	5	5	1-5	5
(5 excellent, 4 above average, 3 average, 2 below average, 1 poor) (5 custom, 4 advanced, 3 intermediate, 2 beginner, 1 introductory)

After working with many Arduino boards and components we always found ourselves asking the same questions over and over. What does each thing do? How easy is it work with? What can it do for my project?

Behold the Seeedstudio Electronic Brick Starter Kit! This kit can be used to get you running with the open source Arduino platform. It includes all the basic components you will use in your typical projects. Both robotic and gadget type projects. This kit will get your hands dirty and your feet wet.

Overview

The Seeedstudio Electronic Brick starter kit includes various sensors, cables as well as a component box! The component box is one you would find in your local hardware store for storing screws, nuts and bolts.

Whats in the box?

1x - Arduino/Seeeduino sensor Chassis V1.1
1x - LCD 16*2 Characters
1x - Rotary angle sensor (Analog)
1x - Big button switch
1x - Buzzer
1x - Tilt switch
2x - Lighting emitting diode
1x - Light sensor
1x - Temperature sensor
1x - 2pin plugable terminal module
5x - Fully buckled 3 wire cable
1x - 10 pin colorful ribbon cable with 2*5 IDC connector

Quick Review

Our intent with the Quick Review is to talk about the high level of the kit. We have created a video that quickly gets you up to speed with the kit and makes everything clear.

Getting Started

This section is geared towards showing you what we once we opened up the kit and started tinkering around with all the components.

This image shows a Seeeduino mounted onto the Seeedstudio mounting plate with the battery holder with and without the included shield.

The following set of images show the sensors. When they first arive in the kit they are all connected to one another. They must be broken apart from one another.

Experiments

For this review we have decided to actually perform a series of basic experiments to demonstrate the what can be done immediately out of the box with the starter kit. Furthermore, we have included the code that was used for each of these experiments to make it easier on you to get started.

Experiment 1 - LCD

The purpose of this experiment is to display some text on the LCD. In order to do this we had to connect the Seeeduino to a PC, mount the included shield and connect the LCD to the shield. Lastly we had to code up a sample sketch to demonstrate this.

Sample Code

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

LiquidCrystal lcd(10,11,12,13,14,15,16);

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin( 9600 );
  lcd.begin(16, 2);
  lcd.clear();
}

void loop()
{
  lcd.setCursor(0,0);
  lcd.println( "hello world!    ");
  delay(1000);
}

Experiment 2 - Push Button

The purpose of this experiment is to test using the push button sensor included int he kit. This experiment is built upon the previous experiment. We simply connected the sensor to the shield and made note of the pin we used for the button. Take note that the push button uses the digital ports and not the analog ports.

Sample Code

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

LiquidCrystal lcd( 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 );

int buttonPin = 8;
int val = 0;

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin( 9600 );
  
  lcd.begin( 16, 2 );
  lcd.clear();
  
  pinMode( buttonPin, INPUT );
}
void loop()
{
  lcd.setCursor( 0, 0 );
  
  val = digitalRead( buttonPin );
  
  if( val == HIGH ) lcd.println( "button pressed  " );
  else if( val == LOW ) lcd.println( "nothing pressed " );
  else lcd.println( "unknown state" );
  
  lcd.println( val );
  
  delay( 1000 );
  
  lcd.clear();
}

Sample Code

Experiment 3 - Push Button, LCD and Buzzer

The purpose of this experiment is to use the existing experiments and incorporate the buzzer. Our goal was to make the buzzer "buzz" when the push button was pressed.

Sample Code

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

LiquidCrystal lcd( 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 );

int buttonPin = 8;
int buzzerPin = 9;
int val = 0;

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin( 9600 );
  
  lcd.begin( 16, 2 );
  lcd.clear();
  
  pinMode( buttonPin, INPUT );
  pinMode( buzzerPin, OUTPUT );
}
void loop()
{
  lcd.setCursor( 0, 0 );
  
  val = digitalRead( buttonPin );
  
  if( val == HIGH ) 
  {
    lcd.println( "button pressed  " );
    digitalWrite( buzzerPin, HIGH );
  }
  else if( val == LOW ) 
  {
    lcd.println( "nothing pressed " );
    digitalWrite( buzzerPin, LOW );
  }
  else lcd.println( "unknown state" );
  
  delay( 1000 );
  
  lcd.clear();
}

Experiment 4 - Rotation Sensor

The purpose of this experiment is to show the rotation sensor working. We did not incorporate any other sensor with this experiment. We simply displayed the output from the rotation sensor onto the LCD.

Sample Code

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

LiquidCrystal lcd(10,11,12,13,14,15,16);

int rotationSensorPin = 1;

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin( 9600 );
  lcd.begin(16, 2);
  lcd.clear();
}

int rotationSensorReading = 0;

void loop()
{
  rotationSensorReading = analogRead( rotationSensorPin );
  
  lcd.setCursor(0,0);
  lcd.print( rotationSensorReading );
  
  delay(1000);
  
  lcd.clear();
}

Experiment 5 - Temperature and Light Sensors outputting to LCD

In this experiment we simply plugged in these two sensors into the analog ports on the shield and displayed the readings onto the LCD. Take into consideration that we did not do any calculations for converting the temperature reading from its raw form.

Sample Code

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

LiquidCrystal lcd(10,11,12,13,14,15,16);

int tempSensorPin = 1;
int lightSensorPin = 2;

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin( 9600 );
  lcd.begin(16, 2);
  lcd.clear();
}
int temp = 0;
int light = 0;

void loop()
{
  temp = analogRead( tempSensorPin );
  light = analogRead( lightSensorPin );
  
  Serial.println( temp );
  Serial.println( light );
  
  lcd.setCursor(0,0);
  lcd.print( temp);
  
  lcd.setCursor(0,1);
  lcd.print( light );
  
  delay(1000);
  
  lcd.clear();
}

Experiment 6 - Tilt Sensor and LCD

In this experiment we plugged in the tilt sensor and displayed the result to the LCD.

Sample Code

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

LiquidCrystal lcd(10,11,12,13,14,15,16);

int tiltSensorPin = 8;

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin( 9600 );
  
  lcd.begin(16, 2);
  lcd.clear();
  
  pinMode( tiltSensorPin, INPUT );
}

int tiltReading = 0;

void loop()
{
  tiltReading = digitalRead( tiltSensorPin );
  
  lcd.setCursor(0,0);
  lcd.print( tiltReading );
  
  delay(1000);
  
  lcd.clear();
}

Support

All in all - we gave Seeedstudio a 5 for support. By far the highest you can achieve. We found that their product was well supported. They offer a wealth of knowledge found on their website on every product page. Furthermore, they also offer an open forum where people can discuss anything about their products. Lastly, being the very nature of this kit - it is well supported in the open source community. Checking out the Arduino Website we found many people discussion and sharing information on thier products.

Lastly, we found that we had some trouble using the Arduino IDE with this product. However, we noticed we were running an older version of the IDE. The moment we upgraded to the latest everything went smoothly.

Conclusion

Robot Sensor Review Score
Quality	Features	Usability	Scalability	Support	Skill Level	Overall
5	5	5	5	5	1-5	5
(5 excellent, 4 above average, 3 average, 2 below average, 1 poor) (5 custom, 4 advanced, 3 intermediate, 2 beginner, 1 introductory)

In conclusion, we highly recommend this product if you are new to arduino and want to get a good firm grasp on everything. The quality of the components is superb and one can expect to use this for sometime without worrying about the components breaking. This kit exposes you to various sensors and makes it easy to do numerous amounts of projects and/or experiments. Refer to the end of this review for additional links like the cook book and other link documents.

Where to buy?

DIYbin.com
Seeedstudio Website

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