Ubicomp applications increasingly involve smart phones that control or communicate with embedded systems. Compelling examples in this space include tangible interfaces, environmental sensor networks, game controllers and automated homes. Across research, design, and hobbyist communities there is clearly a desire to build applications that involve combinations of mobile and non-mobile technologies. However, constructing these applications is a laborious process that requires considerable breadth and depth of expertise in programming, electronics, industrial and interaction design.

Amarino is a toolkit that enables the rapid prototyping of such applications by connecting the Android operating system to the Arduino microcontroller platform. It consists of an Android application, an Arduino library, and a collection of documentation and examples. This suite of tools allows users to: 1) access Android events (ie: compass orientation, accelerometer data, and text messages received) and send them to Arduino microcontrollers without doing any Android programming, and 2) quickly develop Android applications that receive data (ie: environmental sensor data) from (and send data to) Arduino microcontrollers. This paper introduces Amarino and presents the results of a preliminary user study.