I'm working on a pretty in depth Arduino (Creative Commons AVR board over USB) project and I was wondering what would be involved with integrating a Chumby with some of the things that I am already building.

First of all, I am wholly in agreement with the Chumby Philosophy of "It's not a computer, it's something new" And I agree that the chumby is not going to simply replace my computer, nor am I going to be doing overly computer things with it.

What I would like is a small linux computer with a prebuilt gui and screen.  It needs to have some i/o, or failing that, usb.  Flash is fairly easy to use with the Arduino, and the chumby is built for it.

I am making is a 3 to 8 axis motion control rig for stop motion photography.  Think: CNC machine holding camera.  The controlling rig suspends the camera down into the animator's set from above, and then moves it a frame at a time along rails for x&y, a ratcheted Z axis, and rings to control pitch, roll and yaw (focus and/or zoom might happen instead of yaw).  A solenoid on a relay or an IR camera will capture the hero frame, and a webcam through the viewfinder will take a preview frame.  The frame capture is probably the easiest part, and was the first part completed.

An arduino is controlling salvaged stepper motors via h-bridges.  As a proof of concept, I have the x and z axis' completed, and are programmable from a three button interface.  One button moves a step forward and records it, the second marks B position and rewinds, the third allows you to input seconds.  The arduino divides the (total steps on an axis by (  (seconds)  (frames per second)  )  )  Moving the stepper forwards so many movements each time you tell it, and then keeping track.

Now this only really allows linear movement.  To attain curves (space or speed) or multiple control points that are preprogrammed, saved, and editable is going to require some sort of graphical interface.

I'm not asking anyone to build this for me, or tell me how to do it.   I'm not a wiz at this sort of thing, but my partner and I have made a lot of progress, and are really enjoying the project. 

What I would like to know, are the following:

* Am I going to be able to plug into some +5 i/o on the Chumbilical?  I seem to remember something about needing to convert from +3.3 ttl.  I've never done that, but it seems to be a fairly common DIY project online, and there are commercial products that will do it.

* Would you recommend capturing the web cam data via the chumby, and uploading wirelessly?  Or would the chumby not be suited for this?  (note, I wont be taking video via the webcam, only still frames)

* Is this an application that you would recommend?  In planning we were going to either use Flash, or Processing for the computer based graphical interface, and using a linux based flash, on a separate device seems ideal.  If not for extending to the further reaches of possibility and good taste, why else are the Chumbies so open?  At the current price of the Chumby ($179?) I can't imagine a less expensive flash device, or one better suited.

Once the project is completed, my animator friend and I would like to possibly sell a few replicas to the stop motion community.  But otherwise, all plans, code and suggestions after finishing the project will be made available to the community at large.  Open hardware begets open hardware.