In this section, we will briefly discuss the Raspberry Pi AlaMode's features and its setup. Raspberry Pi AlaMode (as shown in the following figure) is a stackable Arduino development platform developed specifically for the Raspberry Pi. The board, which is released as open source hardware, is priced at about $45 and also includes a real-time clock and a micro SD card slot for data logging.
Raspberry Pi AlaMode mode stacked on the Raspberry Pi
The attractive feature of the board is that it could be programmed via the Raspberry Pi's UART pins and hence eliminates the need for a USB port. The board could be either powered via the Raspberry Pi or through the Micro B USB port using a wall wart transformer. The product's webpage, http://wyolum.com/projects/alamode/alamode-getting-started/, offers a single step process to start using the board.