Shrimp Kit – £4.00

The Shrimp kit contains the core components you need to create your own Arduino-compatible circuit and create your own digital inventions. Instructions below to build it and program it. See projects like the Memory Game or Persistence of Vision for starter examples or use the Pinmapping diagram to turn any existing Arduino projects into Shrimp projects. Visit the kit pages for ordering.

To build a Shrimp you will need either a solderless breadboard, or some copper stripboard to wire up the components into a circuit. Although the diagrams show the layout on the smaller 170 point breadboards, the same layout works perfectly for spot-cut stripboard, or the larger 400-point breadboards with power rails (you can ignore the power rails during the Shrimp build).

You will also need a USB to UART adapter to send code to your Shrimp. Download the free Arduino IDE as an authoring and programming tool which is compatible with the Shrimp (it identifies as an Arduino Uno). If you received a CP2102 USB adapter from us, then visit the CP2102 config page to set it up.

The design does not include a power regulator as for most workshopping and simple deployments this is not needed. The circuit can be supplied with 3.3v through to 5v, meaning it can be powered directly from USB or using 3xAAA batteries (after programming it over USB).

You may have chosen a Persistence of Vision expansion kit, or a Memory Game expansion kit at one of our events. These both contain breadboards which you can use to make a full Shrimp circuit.

You can start out by following our guide to make and program a minimal Blink circuit. This should enable you to upload the famous Arduino Blink sketch and prove that you can flash an LED with code.

If you have a breadboard with power rails and 8 LEDs, you can build a Persistence of Vision circuit.

After experimenting with minimal circuits, it is good to add all the protective components to make a complete Shrimp circuit, following our main build diagram.

This creates a protected circuit which can do the job of an Arduino in a wide range of circumstances, including driving motors and other projects where actuators generate electrical noise (the unprotected ‘minimal shrimp’ would reset itself without warning due to fluctuations in the power supply. These are smoothed by the extra capacitors in the protected circuit).

Once complete this circuit can act as a substitute for an Arduino Uno, so you can then experiment with circuit diagrams from the Arduino community, using the Arduino Pinmapping diagram as a guide to the alternate pin numbering system chosen by the Arduino team.

The circuit components costs us around £2 in parts after P&P and VAT. At events we charge twice what it costs us to source these items to cover our effort and keep everything going.

Educators and hackspaces may want to source these kits in bulk direct from wholesale suppliers by looking at the information of where we buy each component, which is listed in our recipe page.

Happy hacking, and get in touch if you need anything.