Dear Backers,

We hear you loud and clear - BREAK OUT ALL THE GPIOS!

Thanks to your overwhelming support, we have just blown past the second stretch goal at $350k, and all our backers will be receiving with their Novena system a General Purpose Breakout Board (GPBB). This makes it easier than ever to unlock the power of your built-in FPGA, as its 40-pin header format is conducive to economical rapid prototyping and bread boarding methods.

We are really excited to see what the user community does with their breakout-board enabled Novena systems. The GPBB turns many tasks into a matter of plugging a few wires into a header and blasting a bitfile to the FPGA, ranging from controlling robotics servos to talking to IR remotes to flipping solid state relays that can then control appliances, to reading simple sensors, such as those for temperature or light level.

Amazingly, we are just 19 desktop/laptop/heirloom units short of hitting the MyriadRF SDR stretch goal; and upon hitting that goal, most likely we will simultaneously blow through the third stretch goal of a ROMulator board for everyone. Both of these are really exciting rewards that unlock a new level of hacking capability in your Novena-powered system.

So keep up the great work, and let’s see if we can’t get our user community another exciting reward or two in the next couple of days!

bunnie and xobs