New Board of Education USB in Design at Parallax

Parallax is making very intentional and focused efforts to support our educational customers for the long term. You may have seen our recent video in which I talked informally about these changes. 

You are familiar with the BASIC Stamp 2 and the famous Board of Education  USB (#28850), especially if you learned from our What’s a Microcontroller? Kit or if you own a Boe-Bot. The original Board of Education remains very popular in education due to the simplicity of the BASIC Stamp 2 and its “close to the code” performance with the easy PBASIC language. But the Board of Education really needs a few key improvements to fit within our American manufacturing process and deliver more features to our customers. We’re making these improvements happen, now.  

The new Board of Education USB Revision E will appear identical to the one documented in our books and tutorials. The board size is the same as previously, locations of all headers, fixing holes, buttons, switches, breadboard, and LEDs are the same too. 

Yet the Board of Education USB Revision E will have some additional performance improvements:

• Uprated Power supply to 5V 3Amp (was 1Amp) provides more power for projects and servo control
• Reverse polarity protection at power inputs against connecting the 9V battery or DC-Jack battery pack incorrectly
• Short circuit protection at all power outputs to gracefully shutdown without causing damage to your Board of Education, BASIC Stamp 2, or your project

You will start receiving the new Board of Education Revision E in our kits as the current Revision D is consumed in our kitting process.  I expect the transition to happen before summer. 

Ken Gracey
Parallax Inc.