Microsoft .NET Gadgeteer is a rapid prototyping platform for small electronic gadgets and embedded hardware devices. It combines the advantages of object-oriented programming, solderless assembly of electronics using a kit of hardware modules, and quick physical enclosure fabrication using computer-aided design.
About .NET Gadgeteer
.NET Gadgeteer was created by researchers at Microsoft as an internal prototyping tool, but because of external interest, particualrly from educators and hobbyists, we turned it into open source software which now has a vibrant hardware ecosystem from multiple manufacturers.
The platform is built on the .NET Micro Framework, which allows small devices to be programmed in the C# language and make use of Visual Studio’s programming and debugging tools.
Individual .NET Gadgeteer modules can be easily connected together to construct both simple and sophisticated devices. Each module adds some extra capabilities, such as the ability to display images, playback sounds, take pictures, sense the environment, communicate with other devices or enable user interaction. This powerful combination allows fully functional devices to be prototyped in a matter of hours rather than days or weeks.
- Steve Hodges, Time for Gadgeteer, in IEEE Spectrum, IEEE, April 2013
- Sue Sentance and Steve Hodges, .NET Gadgeteer Workshop, in International Conference on Informatics in Schools: Situation, Evolution and Perspectives (ISSEP), Springer, 2 March 2013
- Steve Hodges, James Scott, Sue Sentance, Colin Miller, Nicolas Villar, Scarlet Schwiderski-Grosche, Kerry Hammil, and Steven Johnston, .NET Gadgeteer: A New Platform for K-12 Computer Science Education, in SIGCSE '13 Proceedings of the 44th ACM technical symposium on computer science education , ACM, March 2013
- Steve Hodges, Stuart Taylor, Nicolas Villar, James Scott, and John Helmes, Exploring Physical Prototyping Techniques for Functional Devices using .NET Gadgeteer, in Proceedings of TEI 2013, ACM, February 2013
- Steve Hodges, Stuart Taylor, Nicolas Villar, James Scott, Dominik Bial, and Patrick Tobias Fischer, Prototyping Connected Devices for the Internet of Things, in IEEE Computer, IEEE Computer Society, February 2013
- Sue Sentance and Scarlet Schwiderski-Grosche, Challenge and Creativity: Using .NET Gadgeteer in Schools, in Proceedings of 7th Workshop on Primary and Secondary Computing Education (WIPSCE '12), ACM, 8 November 2012
- James Scott, A.J. Bernheim Brush, and Ratul Mahajan, Demo Abstract: Augmenting Homes with Custom Devices using .NET Gadgeteer and HomeOS, in Proceedings of BuildSys 2012, ACM, November 2012
- AJ Brush, Jaeyeon Jung, Ratul Mahajan, and James Scott, HomeLab: Shared infrastructure for home technology field studies, in Workshop on Systems and Infrastructure for the Digital Home (HomeSys), ACM, September 2012
- Nicolas Villar, James Scott, Steve Hodges, Kerry Hammil, and Colin Miller, .NET Gadgeteer: A Platform for Custom Devices, in Proceedings of Pervasive 2012, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, June 2012
- Steve Hodges, Nicolas Villar, James Scott, and Albrecht Schmidt, A New Era for Ubicomp Development, in IEEE Pervasive Computing, vol. 11, no. 1, IEEE Computer Society, January 2012
- James Scott, A.J. Bernheim Brush, John Krumm, Brian Meyers, Mike Hazas, Steve Hodges, and Nicolas Villar, PreHeat: Controlling Home Heating Using Occupancy Prediction, in Proceedings of UbiComp 2011, ACM, September 2011
- N. Villar, J. Scott, and S. Hodges, Prototyping with Microsoft .NET Gadgeteer, in Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, 2011
If you want to cite .NET Gadgeteer, please refer to the paper above entitled ".NET Gadgeteer: a Platform for Custom Devices" at Pervasive 2012.
Photos
The photos below (and the video at the top) are a little retro since they show off our old internal hardware, but the open source platform hardware has followed this pretty closely.
Learn More
- .NET Gadgeteer website
Find out how to get and use .NET Gadgeteer - available hardware, example projects, and documentation. - .NET Gadgeteer Codeplex website
Learn more about the open source project and find details about developing your own .NET Gadgeteer-compatible modules.
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.NET Gadgeteer: Launch Pad for Devices |
