Someone asked me how they could use a dc motor instead of a servo or stepper, how they could get the position of a motor with a small amount of components. Hopefully the following attachments are all you need, later i will add more ideas you can use, or maybe you have a simpler way of doing a more complex task ?
A friend asked me how he could keep his pcb layout small, i jokingly said "you could probably mount smd to the top & botton surface of the mcu" keeping in mind any problems with heat dissipation. So this is something i drew up & pain stakingly made as a 1 off, but it does have potential ]
Rapid Development of GUI for Arduino Uno, read here;
http://www.dsprobotics.com/support/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=567&p=1770&hilit=com+port+read&sid=f5df7663fa6338f47661bcf400d841d7#p1770
Of course the demo of Flowstone is limited, but is very easy to use & like here, their is great support.
Robots are cool
The cheapest 8 bit i2c io expander was;
A little bit of desoldering (optional) & the right datasheet , $1.50 is unbeatable;
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-5V-IIC-I2C-Serial-Interface-Board-Module-For-Arduino-1602-LCD-Display-/200928637510?pt=AU_B_I_Electrical_Test_Equipment&hash=item2ec847b246
Datasheet
It seems the more i play with my mega, uno, mini, pro-mini, micro & nano's my projects seem to be getting larger & more complicated, the people here have made my 3 months of Duino'ing less of a burden learning to program. A big part that has accelerated my learning is a few books i have purchased & almost memorized & the odd (hmm) link to well written guides.
My Hat goes off to Nick Gammon & his ongoing ingenuity
Index see the Arduino section
Another Australian hard at work is John Boxall
The kind people at JeeLabs
http://jeelabs.org/tag/techniques/
Books i have purchased & highly recommend
Getting Started With Arduino - Massimo Banzi (Heil to the king)
Arduino Internals - Dale Wheat
Arduino Projects To Save The World - Emery Premeaux & Brian Evans
Arduino Workshop - John Boxall
Arduino Cookbook - Michael Margolis
Beginning C For Arduino - Jack Perdum
Of course this forum, its contributors & The references, libraries & tutorials at Arduino.cc
And the many other external contributions from the Arduino community.