Proxino Blends the Real and Virtual Circuit Designs

Increasingly, makers and experimenters are modeling electronic devices on software-based tools such as Tinkercad Circuits. Although this works well in a simulation, if you want to interact with your circuit in the real world, you normally need to actually build it.

Proxino presents a different solution for building and modifying circuits, enabling a virtual on-screen design to interact with real components via physical proxies. The tangible portion of Proxino, which takes the form of an Arduino Uno shield, gets inputs from actual devices such as flex sensors or IR receivers, and outputs responses in components like a buzzer or light. This interaction also extends to remote collaborators, who can offer help and provide real components on their end as needed. In other words, if one circuit designer lacks a certain component, the other can add it a remotely simulated version, allowing the simulation to proceed even when you don’t have that critical item.

The shield runs on a Nuvoton Arm Cortex-M4 microcontroller, with a data acquisition and proxy driver circuit along with headers to access the Arduino pins directly. While there is some (typically small) difference in the simulated and real devices, such a system could be a great learning tool, or could even be used in product development as it matures.