Freedom Kit

Back in high school, when I used to use AIM all the time, I remember saving two months worth of allowance to get a portable instant messaging gadget that could talk online, or to my brother’s unit when he was somewhere else in the house.

Like the WiNet Kit, the Freedom Kit communicates over Xbee. But rather than talking to a PC-tethered base station, the Freedom Kit has two remote units capable of talking to each other. The TouchShield provides all the I/O you’ll need on the go.

Send information up to 200 feet through walls and much further outdoors. It’s great for wireless sensor logging or remote user input.

Each remote unit consists of an Arduino Uno, Xbee Shield, TouchShield Slide, DoubleTall ExtenderShield, and MeCap Backpack .

Getting the Xbees to talk to each other can be tricky sometimes, but there’s no digging through datasheets and programming APIs to set this one up. Mike pre-programs each kit so the two zigbee devices are already paired with each other. Simply Serial.print() all the wireless data you want!

Software

Freedom Kit Test Code (same as WiNet Code ) – Example code for the Antipasto Arduino IDE with all the serial setup to talk.

Components

• 2 Arduino Uno
• 2 Arduino XBee Shields
• 2 TouchShield Slide
• 2 Double Tall ExtenderShield
• 2 MeCap Lithium Backpack
• Precut wires (4 red and 4 black)
• Preprogrammed XBee Shields

Documentation

Assembly Notes