SparkFun Works with NVIDIA to Release Two New Kits

SparkFun Electronics announces the release of the JetBot AI Kit powered by the NVIDIA Jetson Nano and the Course Materials Kit for “Getting Started with AI on the Jetson Nano” from NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Institute. SparkFun’s version of the JetBot merges the machine learning capabilities of the NVIDIA Jetson Nano with the vast SparkFun ecosystem of sensors and accessories.

Packaged as a ready-to-assemble robotics platform, the SparkFun JetBot Kit requires no additional components or 3D printing to get started, just assemble the robot, boot up the Jetson Nano and start using the JetBot immediately. 

The Jetson Nano Developer Kit offers extensibility through a GPIO header and associated programming capabilities like the Jetson GPIO Python library. Building off this capability, the SparkFun kit includes the SparkFun Qwiic pHat for Raspberry Pi, enabling immediate access to the extensive SparkFun Qwiic ecosystem from within the Jetson Nano environment, which makes it easy to integrate more than 30 daisy-chainable sensors without soldering. 

Delivered with the advanced functionality of JetBot ROS (Robot Operating System) and AWS RoboMaker, with AWS IoT Greengrass pre-installed, SparkFun’s JetBot AI Kit is the only kit currently on the market ready to move beyond the standard JetBot examples. Many other popular AI frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, Caffe and MXNet are supported, and Jetson Nano is capable of running multiple neural networks in parallel to process data and drive action.

Each SparkFun JetBot AI Kit includes the following: NVIDIA Jetson Nano Developer Kit; Robot Platform Chassis and all Prototyping Electronics; 64GB MicroSD card—pre-flashed with the JetBot Image; 145 Field of View, wide-angle camera module; Wi-Fi adapter; serial controlled motor driver; and micro OLED Breakout.  

SparkFun is accommodating individuals who already own a Jetson Nano Developer Kit by also releasing a version of the JetBot Kit without one.

If people are looking to get started with AI but don’t know how, an additional kit has been made available for NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Institue (DLI) course. In the course, students will learn to collect image data and use it to train, optimize and deploy AI models for custom tasks like recognizing hand gestures, or image regression for locating a key point in an image. Everything needed for this course has been included in the SparkFun DLI Kit for Jetson Nano.

Each SparkFun DLI Kit for Jetson Nano includes the following: NVIDIA Jetson Nano Developer Kit; 32GB MicroSD card; Raspberry Pi Camera Module; Power Supply 5V, 4A; USB Cable—microB; and jumpers.

“It’s our mission here at SparkFun Electronics to make our products and resources as accessible as possible for anyone interested in pushing the boundaries of innovation,” says Glenn Samala, SparkFun CEO. 

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.

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