[Lab] Potential Arduino Starter Kit for the Arduino Workshops

[Justin]

Arduino Experts: Please jump to the end, I have a specific question for you 
too!


I stumbled across the following Arduino Compatible Starter Kit that looks 
like it will be a good starting point for the workshops that Darcy, myself 
and others are planning. We're going to order some and see what we think of 
them (they might be great, or they might be low quality)

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-shipping-Latest-products-based-learning-kit-for-ROBOTALE-brand/1078431259.html

Would anybody like us to order one for them? I'm that with the interest 
that I've seen on the list, we can get an order of at least 5 which will 
get the price down to $23.05US.
If you commit to a unit, it will be on the honour system to show up at a 
future modlab night and exchange actual cash for the kit. If there are 
duties imposed on the package, the duties will be split evenly amongst 
everyone who orders. We have no idea how long it will take for this to 
arrive, they claim 15-34 days. I've seen fast and slow shipments from China.


Arduino Experts:
================
On the page for the board 
(http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Freeshipping-UNO-R3-MEGA328P-ATMEGA16U2-for-Arduino-Compatible/1078446283.html ) 
it has details about some changes that they've made to the board. I am 
wondering if you experts forsee any issues with the USB change or the pin 
changes noted below:


Funduino UNO R3 2012 launched an easy to use open-source controller 
hardware and Arduino UNO and no major changes, the biggest difference is 
that USB to serial part of the circuit switch is a ATMega16U2 
microcontroller, whichthe cost increase, the software part of the same as 
before, no major changes.

Functions:

Pin changes plus two I2C pins (SDA and SCL: next to the AREF pin, the 
Analog 4 and 5 copy, not the additional I2C interface), added two pins, the 
RESET next one is IOREF, , allowing the expansion board to adapt to 
on-board voltage, this pin is just told to expand the board's current 
on-board voltage (such as UNO is 5V, the power supply pin can be seen as 
copy, does not provide the level pull-up), and the other is after inactive 
placeholder pins.

(2) more stable RESET circuit. RESET key position has changed, be moved 
close to the USB interface board corner, more convenient to press.

3 ATmega16U2 to replace a 8U2, this does not mean a 16K flash R3 to make 
your code run faster, this update for the USB interface chip, in theory, it 
allows the UNO can emulate USB the HID, such as the MIDI / Joystick / Keyboard.