We’re very happy to welcome the newest member of the Arduino platform: the LilyPad Arduino. The board was lovingly crafted by Leah Buechley and SparkFun electronics for use in wearable / e-textile projects. There’s also a whole range of accessories: power supply, sensors, LED and sound output, etc. It’s all available from the LilyPad section of SparkFun.

The boards can be sewn together with conductive thread or attached to conductive fabrics to create light-weight and flexible electronics clothing or other textiles – and all in a beautiful purple. The guide to the LilyPad has instructions for getting started with the board and Leah has some directions for using it in a project.

The LilyPad has actually been out for a couple of weeks, but today we released version 0010 of the Arduino software, which properly supports the board.

Downloads.
Windows: arduino-0010-win.zip
Mac OS X: arduino-0010-mac.zip
Linux version coming soon.

The most significant improvements (besides LilyPad support) are the stability and clean-up changes:

• Universal distribution for Mac OS X
• Support for Windows Vista
• Improved error messages
• Better auto-format
• Support for ports COM10 and higher on Windows
• Fixed automatic refresh of the Serial Port menu under Windows
• New and improved keyboard shortcuts

Other new features include:

• Printing
• Support for more programmers (USBtinyISP, AVR ISP, AVRISP mkII, parallel programmers) for use in bootloader burning.
• “Copy for Discourse” menu item that copies a sketch formatted for posting on the Arduino forums

As with the Arduino XBee Shield, we’re very pleased to be working with others to expand the available range of Arduino hardware. We’re thrilled at the results so far, and hope to continue these collaborations in the future. If you have any ideas, please email us – we’d love to work with you.

So be sure to check out the LilyPad and Arduino 0010 and congratulations to Leah and SparkFun for their wonderful work.

Update: Arduino 0010 for Linux is now available: arduino-0010-linux.tgz