Ask Slashdot: What's The Best Open Source Hardware to Tinker With?

This question comes from an anonymous Slashdot reader who just got an Arduino and started tinkering with electronics: I'm quite amazed at the quality of the hardware, software, and the available tutorials and (mostly free) literature. A very exciting and inexpensive way to get a basic understanding of electronics and the art of microcontroller programming.

Now that I'm infected with the idea of Open Source hardware, I'm wondering if the Slashdot community could suggest a few more things to get for a beginner in electronics with experience in programming and a basic understanding of machine learning methods. I was looking at the OpenBCI project [Open Brain Computer Interface], which seems like an interesting piece of hardware, but because of the steep price tag and the lack of reviews or blog posts on the internet, I decided to look for something else.
Leave your best answers in the comments. What's the best open source hardware to tinker with?

Comments

Build your own

[dlleigh]

Anyone who wants to tinker with hardware should buy a copy of Horowitz and Hill’s “The Art of Electronics”, now in its third edition.

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Ele...

It’s practical, understandable and will teach you how to build good, real world analog and digital circuits. Accept no substitutes!

STMicro CubeMX

[Anonymous Coward]

STmicro boards are more powerful than UNOs, have 10x the IO of RPis and cost 1/2 as much as either (US$14 for an 80MHz L4 core with about 20 IOs, including 4 UARTS, 3 SPI, 3 I2C, and a dozen GPIO).

Their CubeMX stack is easier to start with than Silicon Labs or NXP IDEs, and exports projects for IAR, Keil and GNU ARM-AEBI makefile!

I would recommend mbed but there are too many shortcomings.

STMicro = for when you grow out of RPi/Arduino.

Arduino/Genuino

[blind biker]

At this point, I think Arduino has become the most expandable, simplest, and most open HW platform for tinkering, out there. Compared to Raspberry Pi, it has more shields, it allows for better access to the hardware, there is NO need for proprietary drivers (this plagues Raspberry Pi), it has FAR more I/O pins - which is probably why there are so many more shields for it.
Arduino allows for hard-realtime control, should you need it. Among other things, this is why there are various 3D printer, laser-cutter, and CNC machine control boards made based on Arduino.
Finally, the C++ libraries for Arduino are very numerous and allow you to do all kinds of sexy tricks. For instance, simple graphics via CRT control (be it RGB or composite). Or my other favorite set of projects: MIDI controllers and hardware synths based on Arduino.