[WizenedEE]

First of all, an arduino is nothing like a C-RIO. The only thing they have in common is that they're both IO centered - this means that they have lots of inputs and outputs, unlike a computer which has like five USB ports and a headphone jack.

An arduino has 20 IO ports total. If you get an arduino mega, it has 54. The normal one has 6 analog inputs, the mega has 16. The C-RIO, on the other hand, can have 28 DIO ports, 20 PWM ports, 16 analog ports, and 48 DO ports.

The C-RIO runs off of 24V, the arduino runs off of 5V. The C-RIO can be programed in a bunch of different ways, the arduino must be programmed in a language based off of Processing (kind of like C).

The arduino weighs about 500 grams, the C-RIO weighs 2 or 3 kilograms.

The arduino is also a prototyping tool. It's not meant to be used for anything remotely long-term. The headers you plug things into are like those PWM cables (the female ends) and things fall out of them very easily.

Even if you don't care about that, there's a big problem with the arduino: how to tell the robot what to do. With the C-RIO, it has an ethernet port, so you can easily attach an ethernet cable that can connect to a laptop, or connect it to a normal wifi thing. With the arduino, there's nothing of the sort - it connects to a computer via USB. You can buy bluetooth attachments, but it's still hard to get working.

You also need a bunch of extra stuff to work with the arduino. The best way to power it is with a barrel jack, so you'll have to buy or scavenge that and and get 7-12V to it somehow.Then you'd need 22 gauge hookup wire to connect to it. You also need a USB A to B cable, which are getting harder to find.

However, if you don't care about sensors, there's a much easier way to control jaguars. I'm pretty sure you can hook up a normal RC Car receiver and attach the PWM signal to the jaguars (make sure you check first, the jaguars might not want the voltage coming in). Then you'd just control it with the RC transmitter. You could do a tank drive pretty easily (splice the forward/backward signal on one joystick to two of the jags and the same for the other two).