Stetel Things' Maia Dev Board Packs an ESP32-S2, Two USB Ports, and a Prototyping Playground
With a micro-USB OTG port next to a USB Type-C and a handy "playground" area to the top, Maia may be a great way to start ESP32-S2 projects.
Stetel Things has launched a new development board for the Espressif ESP32-S2 microcontroller, offering a novel layout with compact prototyping area to the upper edge.
Launched into mass production earlier this year, the Espressif ESP32-S2 combines a 240MHz primary Xtensa LX7 processor with an ultra-low-power coprocessor based on the free and open source RISC-V instruction set architecture — Espressif's first chip to do so. No sooner were beta chips available than makers began producing board designs, from Unexpected Maker's ProS2 to an "arturo182" design with bundled colour TFT.
Now, Stetel Things has launched its own entry. First spotted by CNX Software, the Maia uses an interesting board layout that sees the inclusion of a small unpopulated prototyping area, dubbed the "playground," to the upper edge of the board — providing a place to add additional components without the need for dangling wires.
The board also includes two USB ports, the typical USB Type-C and a micro-USB which can be used as a USB On The Go (OTG) port, a power-on button which once booted can be used as a programmable input, an integrated battery charging circuit, and unpopulated headers for a 24-pin GPIO general-purpose input/output (GPIO) expansion header and a six-pin JTAG debugging port.
The board, currently in v0.5, is now available to buy from Stetel Thing's Tindie store for $19.70; some source code for firmware and examples is available on the Stetel Things GitHub repository.
