New shield announcement

[Rugged Circuits]

The Gadget Shield is a new Rugged Circuits product that works with our
GATOR board, the Arduino Duemilanove, the Arduino Mega and compatible
boards. Its product page is here:

http://ruggedcircuits.com/html/gadget_shield.html

The shield is fully assembled and ready to use and costs $24.95.

Features:

* A Freescale MMA7361L 3-axis accelerometer. This accelerometer
outputs X/Y/Z-axis data in analog form and is connected directly to
the microcontroller A/D peripheral. Two selectable ranges (+/-1.5g or
+/-6g) allow you to trade off resolution for range. Use it for
detecting orientation (tilt, front, back, portrait, landscape),
movement detection and gesture detection.

* A high-brightness RGB LED. This module contains three independent
LED’s (red, green, and blue) with independent brightness control for
each color since each LED is connected to a separate microcontroller
PWM output. This gives you an incredibly wide color palette to choose
from.

* A 38 kHz logic infrared detector. This module outputs a digital low
signal when 38kHz-modulated infrared energy is detected, as output by
most infrared remote controls. See our sample software for using this
module to decode infrared remote control transmissions.

* An infrared LED. This LED emits light in the 940nm wavelength range
and can be used to generate infrared remote control signals. This LED
is controlled by a microcontroller timer pin so it is simple to
generate the 38 kHz frequencies recognized by most receivers. See our
sample software for using this LED together with the IR logic detector
to turn your microcontroller board into a universal remote control.

* A visible light sensor. This module outputs an analog signal
proportional to the intensity of visible light. This signal is
connected to the microcontroller’s A/D peripheral.

* Two thumbwheel potentiometers. These potentiometers can be read
using the microcontroller’s A/D peripheral. Use the potentiometers for
analog control of some physical device (light brightness, sound volume
or frequency, etc.) or use them as a replacement for a two-axis
joystick controller.

* Four LED’s. 4 general-purpose LED’s for displaying status
information, or perhaps a 4-bit binary value.

* Two pushbuttons. Two general-purpose momentary-contact pushbuttons
are connected to two independent digital inputs.