Last night I ordered some sensors for use with my new Raspberry Pi but I just could not wait to play with sensors. I ran up to the closest electronics store at 10am to buy the last Arduino Esplora in stock.
This is a pretty new addition to the Arduino line up. It comes with multiple sensors pre installed on the board as well as a library to make programming with the sensors a little too easy. It’s a bit pricier than the other boards but for something to learn on and do some random project prototyping it seems ideal.
After about 15 minutes I was already reading data off the sensors and reading it back from the serial console. But since I want to learn more about using the sensors I’ll be porting the project to the lower level API once I’ve finished prototyping on the Esplora library. The Esplora library makes it really easy but I feel like it’s hiding a lot of I want to learn. At this point I have a periodic temperature check which is holding current temperature, all time and relative averages and printing it back over serial in JSON. Now I just need to figure out how to both power the board and get its data over to either a Raspberry Pi or machine somewhere so I can trend and alert. I’m worried about the differences in volts between the two but I’m sure there is a safe way to interface and power. My first project is to keep an eye on the temperature and light levels of my homebrew to ensure proper aging!
Steve's Blog 
I have some Esplora hacking articles at http://21stdigitalhome.blogspot.com/. You could use the Raspberry Pi 5 volts to power Esplora but you’d better check the connections several times to avoid a switched wire. As far as signal level issues, Adafruit has several level shifters in their inventory.
Thanks Mike! I recently picked up a micro with another micro on the way for a basic sensor project I’ll end up writing about on my blog as well (though I’m sure it won’t be anything others have not done before). The Esplora was a requirement for me to figure out the basics of these devices else I’d be pretty lost using other Arduino’s and sensors. All my gear (with exception to a wire box and my first Arduino’s) came from AdaFruit. So much good stuff and the tutorials there are great as well. I’ll check your tutorials and info out as well.