(Austin, TX) Texas Instruments is previewing a prototype of the Next Generation Beaglebone here at South By Southwest. Faster than the first-gen Beaglebone, with more memory, but also significantly cheaper, the Next Generation Beaglebone hits the streets in April. TI hasn’t revealed pricing yet, but a TI employee hinting it would be “about half” the price of the first-gen board. [Update: The next-generation BeagleBone, now known as BeagleBone Black, has been released.]

TI employees describe the Beaglebone as “a cross between Arduino and Raspberry Pi.” If you don’t speak “embedded systems,” Arduino is a popular open-source microcontroller board to which you can connect a nearly endless assortment of sensors, motors, and effectors; Raspberry Pi is a low-cost, credit-card-sized single-board Linux microcomputer.

The takeaway message is that Beaglebone offers the powerful of a Raspberry Pi with the low-level connectivity of an Arduino. With a 720-MHz superscalar ARM Cortex-A8 processor and 3D graphics accelerator, the first-generation Beaglebone is already faster than Raspberry Pi. It’s popularity has suffered, however, due to the relatively high price ($89 versus $39 for Raspberry Pi Model B).

Raspberry Pi isn’t standing still, however. The stripped-down Raspberry Pi Model A recently went on sale in Europe and will soon be available in the US at a price of $25. So, if you’re responding to our Call for Experiments and need a low-power single-board Linux computer, there are multiple low-cost options. Many of this options will be covered at our Space Hacker Workshop in Silicon Valley on May 4-5.

Matt Richardson has posted a video on the Next Generation Beagleboard.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NMURuUTdtk&w=700]

High-speed video (also known as super-slow motion) can be a valuable tool for recording experiment results. A number of companies manufacture high-speed cameras for scientific and industrial purposes. If you’re building an experiment to fly with Citizens in Space, you probably won’t be running out to buy one of those cameras, though. First, the price is a deterrent, with cameras selling for $25,000 and up. Then, there’s the matter of size. These cameras are fine for laboratory use but too large for the 1U and 2U CubeSat payload volumes we are offering.

Fortunately, consumer electronics have come to the rescue. High-speed video features are now incorporated into a number of small, low-cost consumer cameras. These consumer cameras do not achieve the extremely high frame rates achieved by professional high-speed cameras (thousands or even millions of frames per second), but their small size and low cost makes them well suited for our purposes. And in addition to high-speed video, these consumer cameras offer another useful feature – the ability to shoot high-resolution still images in rapid bursts.

The Point-and-Shoot Option: Casio Exilim

Casio was the first company to add high-speed features to its consumer cameras. [Update: Casio has recently discontinued selling point-and-shoot cameras in the US market. The models described here are still available on the used market. More recent models with similar features are available as unofficial imports on the “gray” market.] These features can be found in Casio’s Exilim line of point-and-shoot cameras, but not all Exilim cameras have the high-speed features. In the current US lineup, there is the EX-ZR100, which lists for $299. The simpler, slightly cheaper EX-ZR10 was recently discontinued in the United States but still sold internationally. The EX-ZR200, EX-ZR300, and EX-ZR1000 are newer models not officially imported into the US. The EX-FC150 is an older, discontinued model. All of these cameras, including the discontinued and international models, are available through Ebay and other online sources. So, you can shop around for the most suitable model and the best price.

Video modes vary slightly from model to model, so it’s important to check the specs before you buy. All of these models will shoot standard and high-definition video at 30 frames per second (fps). High-definition video will be 1080p for current models, 720p for the FC150. High-speed video modes are 120 fps, 240 fps, 480 fps, and 1000 fps. Not all models provide the 120- and 1000-fps modes, however. The ZR100, for example, lacks the 120-fps mode. So, if you need 120 fps, the older FC150 would be a better choice.

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As citizen scientists begin developing experiments to fly on the XCOR Lynx spacecraft (see our Call For Experiments), the range of hardware options for payload developers is rapidly increasing. Within the last month, two new microcontroller boards have appeared on the market.

The long-awaited 32-bit Arduino Due microcontroller board has been released and is available for purchase through Makershed, Sparkfun, and Adafruit. Retail price is $49.95.

Running at 84 MHz, the Arduino Due offers a significant performance boost over 8-bit Arduino boards such as the Arduino Uno (16 MHz). The Arduino Due uses the same Maker-friendly Arduino integrated development environment as the Arduino Uno. It also offers API-level software compatibility and compatibility with most Arduino hardware shields – all factors which minimize the learning curve for Arduino developers.

The Arduino Due provides 512 KB of flash memory and two backs of static RAM (64 KB and 32 KB). Full specifications can be found here.

Not to be outdone, Secret Labs LLC has released the 168-MHz Netduino Plus 2, with 1 megabyte of flash memory and 192 KB of RAM. The Netduino series of 32-bit microcontroller boards are compatible with most Arduino shields but run the Microsoft .NET Micro Framework. This makes Netduino a good option for developers who are familiar with the Microsoft .NET platform and Visual Studio development environment.

The Netduino Plus 2 retails for $59.95 and is available through Amazon and Adafruit.

It’s our hope that citizen scientists will try out a wide range of microcontroller and microprocessor options during our initial flight campaign. We will be publishing a guide to available processor options in the near future.