Arduino and a matchboxArdino is a small board with its own processor and memory. The board also has a couple of dozens of pins to which you can connect all kinds of components: light bulbs, sensors, motors, kettles, routers, magnetic door locks and in general anything that runs on electricity.
The Arduino processor can be loaded with a program that will control all these devices according to a preset algorithm. This way you can create an endless number of unique and cool gadgets made by your own hands and according to your own idea. To understand the general idea, take a look at the illustration. It doesn’t represent a millionth of all the possibilities, but it still gives you an initial idea.
Affordable Complexity
The Arduino platform has become wildly popular because of its simplicity and friendliness. Even complete novices in programming and circuit design can master the basics of Arduino in a couple of hours. There are thousands of publications, tutorials, notes on the internet, and an excellent series of video tutorials on Arduino in Russian.
Arduino IDE
Arduino programs are written in plain C++, complete with simple and clear functions to control I/O on the pins. If you already know C++, the Arduino is a door to a new world where programs are not limited to the computer but interact with and influence the world around them. If you’re new to programming – no problem, you can easily learn, it’s easy.
To make working with Arduino boards easy, there is the free official Arduino IDE programming environment that runs on Windows, Mac OS and Linux. With it, loading a new program into the controller becomes a matter of one click, just connect the board to your computer via USB. For the more inquisitive mind you can also use Visual Studio, Eclipse, other IDEs or the command line, but for beginners the visual programming environment XOD IDE will do.
You will not need a soldering iron. You can assemble complete devices using a special breadboard, jumpers and wires with absolutely no soldering. Designing has never been so fast and easy.
The sandwich principle
Another characteristic feature of Arduino is the presence of expansion boards called shields or simply “shields”. These are additional boards that are put like layers of sandwich on top of the Arduino to give it new features. For example, there are expansion boards for connecting to a local area network and the internet (Ethernet Shield), for controlling powerful motors (Motor Shield), for getting coordinates and time from GPS satellites (GPS/GLONASS receiver) and many others.
Bottom line
Arduino is the heart of a construction kit, with no finite, defined set of parts, and no limits to the variety of what you can assemble. Everything is limited only by your imagination. It’s a new world, a killer hobby, and a great gift. Tens of thousands of people around the world have already figured it out.
Where to start
You’ll need the board itself. For example, the Arduino Uno is the most popular board at the moment. It’s a good place to start your experiments. But if you want to “grow out” of it, you might want to consider the more powerful Arduino Mega 2560.
You will also need a USB cable, a breadboard, jumpers, resistors, transistors… and a dozen other handy things. If you don’t want to tire yourself looking for what you need, you can take everything you need as one of the pre-built kits.