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[on:]

One of the projects I have in the pipeline is to hack a Zhu Zhu pets hamster toy for making a toy for my cats. They already love the thing as it is, but I am planning to add my own sounds and behaviors, put on a front wheel (because it was designed for a track) and convert the front code switches to whisker switches for collision. I may add steering of some sort depending on how complex that will be.

I was pleased to find that the Arduino has been ported over to the MSP430. I have a nice kit of the ez-430 USB stick development boards I acquired and used in a project long ago. The little boards will be perfect for this with 14 I/O lines and very small size.

Anyway, one thing I would like to explore is adding some wireless control to it so that I can play with the cats instead of just setting it down and letting it run. Anyone know of a module small enough to fit inside the body of these things? I will be keeping the original PCB in there for the H-bridge, pullups, regulator, etc... So it has to be very small. I may be able to squeeze a bluetooth module in there. Just wondering what options others might have found.

[Reply #1 on:]

Hmm, just discovered that there already is an RF version of the MSP430: http://www.ti.com/tool/ez430-rf2500#buy

But wow... $58. I think I can do it cheaper. I paid like $20 total way back for all the little boards and debugger/programmer back when they were promoting it.