Greetings everyone. After months of research (constantly being redirected back to this site), and lurking this forum, i finally signed up and purchased my first Nano v3.0 for starters. I have scrolled through pages of forum topics (which btw go on for ever it seems) and haven't found exactly what I am looking for so i'm hoping that someone here has the time to assist me in a project my daughters and I are working on. We are trying to keep our finished project under 33mm wide, and preferably under 65mm in length (though length is not a major issue). We decided we can achieve this by mounting all the necessary hardware on one pcb but we are trying to do this with out having to connect shield after shield together. Our issue is we are not quite sure how to go about incorporating the elements of a Micro/Nano/Mini, 3-axis accelerometer, DAC, Audio Amp, LED driver, Micro SD slot, and serial flash (if required) on one pcb. Now i know the easy route would me to just purchase the shields and be done with it, but come on where is the fun in that and it's a good opportunity to brush up on my skills and teach my daughters something new at the same time. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated and you would help put an ear to ear grin on all of our faces.
If you haven't found an Arduino style board that carries all the functions you're looking for, then it doesn't exist. You probably won't because it's 'too much stuff' to fit on one physical board, even a Mega size one.
The functions you're looking for can be found on various smaller discrete boards. 'Shields' take up a lot of space that don't do much, they're just easier to stack. Smaller boards that take up only as much space as they require take up a lot less space in total square inches.
The functions you want, add up the I/O pins they require, and see if it fits the Nano. If they don't fit then you may need something larger, or compromise on functions and leave something out. All those libraries combined probably won't fit in a Nano memory anyway, never mind functional software to 'do something' with all the hardware.
Don't try to do it all at once. Pick -one- function, make it work, then pick the next function.
After you have all the pieces put together you -could- try a metamorphosis that combines all the functions into one board, design your own, but that's a whooole 'nother art and craft.