I got hold of a Nanode kit after the excellent OggCamp last weekend and yesterday I got round to putting it together, just sneaking in before the Nanode’s first anniversary!
It’s not doing anything exciting in that photo (just connected to a spare Arduino board in the absence of an FTDI cable) but shorty afterwards, thanks to Andy’s post, it was turning an LED on and off using the power of the internet! Ok, so maybe a Pachube dashboard is overkill for an LED, but I have a weather feed I’ve been meaning to connect to an ambient orb for a while… except I seem to have packed that for moving house already!
The Nanode is a great kit and eventually I’d really like to get it hooked up to the central heating, but I expect other DIY projects will delay that for a little while.
Update: check out this brilliant video of @knolleary building Nanode 349! It took me much longer!! (25 August 2011)
Notes from a small field 
Any pointers on how to use the arduino as a ftdi cable?
My USB to serial hasn’t turned up yet but my nanode is ready and waiting!
You need to take the ATmega chip out of the spare Arduino, then just connect together the Tx, Rx, Gnd, 5V and Reset lines using the shield connectors. (Great tip from Ken on the #nanode IRC channel while I was building the Nanode– works a treat.)
Looks like it’s also possible to do this with just three connections and without taking the ATmega chip out: Tutorial – How to program a Nanode using a Arduino board. I think I’ll stick to the five connections above to avoid any holding down reset buttons though.
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