Cârpino#

Cârpino (pronunced /cɨr-pi-no/) represents an Arduino-like board that makes good use of the ATmega644PA microcontroller. It was designed from the ground-up and can be used as a better alternative to the much more popular Arduino Uno.

The Cârpino board (top: rev. A, front: rev. B)

The Cârpino board (top: rev. A, bottom: rev. B)

The project's name, Cârpino, is a combination of the Romanian verb "a cârpi" (which figuratively means to quickly invent something functioning or to repair something without the use of proper tools or materials) and "Arduino".

When and why?#

The electronics summer school organized by Victor Stoica and Asst. Prof. Dumitru-Cristian Trancă taught the students willing to learn many useful skills, including the development of electronic circuits, (de)soldering, choice of components etc.

As a final project, some of the students made these Arduino-like boards, each being uniquely crafted from scratch.

I am proud to tell you (definitely not bragging) that this was the best design out there.

A sidetrack about the summer school#

This summer school was such a great experience! For anybody that is able to enroll, I recommend you do! Not only is it lots of fun, but it taught us so many useful concepts!

Me (bottom-left), Victor (top-left) and other students during the summer school

A different picture depicting the 2023's electronics summer school's students

Board features#

The second revision (rev. B) has the following features:

• It uses the ATmega644PA microcontroller;

• It runs at 16MHz (instead of the on-board 8MHz offered by the microcontroller);

• 32 individually addressable GPIO pins;

• Both 5V (5 pins) and 3.3V (3 pins); there are 5 pins dedicated to GND;

• Exposed AVR and UART pins;

• A reset button, power and communication LEDs;

• External input power connection (with diode protection).