Rapid improvements in hardware and software are continuing to arrive, especially as AI tools improve and become more accessible. We think that a careful selection of tools will facilitate the hands-on use of electronic sensors, control and communications by biologists - making custom builds easier for our experiments. This website is intended to provide a window into ongoing developments, and regular updates can be found at the Bluesky link below.

Getting started

Tighter integration of hardware and software

Matt Wayland and I have been surveying new hardware devices that would (i) take advantage of the ESP32 family of high performance, low cost microcontrollers, (ii) offer well supported alternative to XOD for visual and low-code programming, preferably with a pathway to a conventional coding language such as Python, (iii) with good support for existing hardware and flexibility for the future including use of AI tools, (iv) tools for interactive design and programming of touchscreen user interfaces, and (v) all this accessible at reasonable price and availability.

After numerous trials, we have gravitated to M5Stack hardware, well-engineered devices based on ESP32- S3 and ESP32-P4 microcontrollers, available with integrated touchscreens and Grove-compative connectors for expansion. The Core family is comprised of 5x5cm modules that can be stacked on each other via a custom M5 electronic bus for communication. A number of different functions can be plugged together to create hybrid multi-function devices. In addition the Tab5 device is available that provides a larger touchscreen and is based on the ESP-P4 (with an ESP32-C3 for wireless communications). The M5Stack Core3 and Tab5 have support for new AI tools like prompt-based coding via ESP-Claw. Perhaps most importantly from the perspective of Biomaker, M5Stack provides access to a web based programming environment UiFlow2 that gives (i) a Blockly interface for visual programming, teamed with (ii) a linked Micropython editor to allow combined approaches to coding. (iii) There is good built-in support for the wide variety of M5Stack devices, including small Atom and Stamp devices and peripherals. There is also support for Seeedstudio Xiao and Arduino Nesso ESP32 based devices. (iv) UiFlow2 includes a special integrated interface for programming their touchscreens, and allows seamless switching back and forth between the programming environments. In this way, user interfaces can be developed and tested quickly.