Two weekends ago, thousands of revelers from across the fields of electronics, engineering, art and more gathered at the New York Hall of Science in the NYC borough of Queens to take part in World Maker Faire — an international event that attracts attendees from across the globe.
What was once a hub for the grassroots “maker movement,” Maker Faire has caught the attention of industry giants ranging from energy systems corporations to semiconductor stalwarts like Intel, Atmel and Qualcomm.
This year, Qualcomm’s booth featured their new DragonBoard 410c development board. Developed with Arrow Electronics, this powerful board is built around the Qualcomm SnapDragon — a 1.2Ghz quad-core processor that has found its home as the driving force behind cutting-edge technology like mobile devices from HTC, LG and Motorola.
The DragonBoard brings the incredible processing power found in the latest consumer tech into the hands of makers, DIY enthusiasts and prototypers looking for a robust platform to power their designs. In combination with its 64-bit processor, the DragonBoard also features 1GB of low power DDR3 RAM and 8GB of flash storage (plus microSD expansion capabilities). With a robust 400MHz graphics processor that can handle 1080p HD video through a built-in HDMI port and support for Linux, Android 5.1 and future support for Windows 10, the DragonBoard is equally at home as a single-board computer as it is as the brains behind embedded designs.
Indeed the real appeal of the DragonBoard is its versatility. Equally at home in art installations, robotics projects, IoT builds and connected systems, the DragonBoard has the work-horse stats to keep up with just about any project you could throw at it.
Qualcomm and Arrow have also recently announced the creation of the DragonBoard 410c IoT Starter Kit, which will integrate seamlessly with Amazon Web Services, a cloud-based platform built for the Internet of Things.