otterboards

Otterboards is a family of waterproof, modular microcontroller boards designed for marine and other harsh-environment applications. The boards are open-source hardware, intended to be compatible with common development tools and the Arduino ecosystem, enabling hobbyists, educators, and researchers to build sensor networks, data loggers, and autonomous or semi-autonomous devices for water or rugged outdoor use.

Design and features include an IP68 rating with submersion capability for overcoming challenging conditions, typically down to around 50 meters in field specifications. They offer a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4 core, tens to hundreds of kilobytes of RAM, and configurable flash storage, with a broad set of interfaces such as I2C, SPI, UART, CAN, and USB-C. Power options emphasize flexibility, including lithium-based battery packs and USB supply, with onboard energy management for efficiency. The hardware uses 3.3V logic levels and provides corrosion-resistant connectors suitable for saline or humid environments. A modular concept supports plug-in sensor carriers called Otter Modules (OMs), for applications like depth sensing, GPS, sonar, and environmental monitoring.

Variants and ecosystem include a base Otterboard with expanding headers, plus models such as Otterboard Mini for compact projects, Otterboard Pro for higher performance and more IO, and Otterboard Nano for low-cost sensing tasks. All models share a common form factor and open-source software libraries, enabling cross-compatibility across projects.

Applications span education, citizen science, marine research, and robotics, where reliable underwater or outdoor operation is required. Documentation, example projects, and community forums accompany the hardware, and licenses typically cover open-source hardware and firmware.

See also: open-source hardware, microcontroller, Arduino-compatible platforms.