Engineering community website element14 has teamed with Microchip to launch the new PIC18 Flowcode Development Kit. This development and demonstration kit is designed to provide a hands-on approach to learning the Flowcode graphical programming language (GPL). The main advantage of Flowcode is that it allows users with little or no programming experience to create electronic systems in little time.

 

The development kit is based on a Microchip PIC18F26J50 low-power 8-bit microcontroller and includes an integrated temperature sensor, a capacitive touch sensor and a potentiometer. Optimised for Flowcode development, the board has several expansion options and can be used as a black box. Flowcode is compatible with Microchip’s PICkit programmer and third party programmers. A ‘Lite’ version of Flowcode 4 is included in the kit.


At slightly over 40 euros the board seems a bit expensive. Luckily the design files (schematic & PCB in Eagle) are available for download, and so is the software, so you can always build your own.