Arduino Projects & Overview: For Beginners
History of Arduino:
Hernando Barragán started Wiring (now known as Arduino) in 2003 as his Master’s thesis project at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII) in Italy. The objective of the thesis was to make it easy for artists and designers to work with electronics, by abstracting away the often complicated details of electronics so they can focus on their own objectives. Massimo Banzi and Casey Reas (known for his work on Processing) were supervisors for my thesis. The project received plenty of attention at IDII, and was used for several other projects from 2004, up until the closure of the school in 2005.
What is Arduino?
Arduino is a prototype platform (open-source) based on an easy-to-use hardware and software. It consists of a circuit board, which can be programed (referred to as a micro-controller) and a ready-made software called Arduino IDE (Integrated Development Environment), which is used to write and upload the computer code to the physical board. The key features are :
Project #1: Blinking LED
Project #2: Button LED
Project #3: Flowing LED
Project #4: LCD Display
Project #5: Serial Monitor
Hernando Barragán started Wiring (now known as Arduino) in 2003 as his Master’s thesis project at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII) in Italy. The objective of the thesis was to make it easy for artists and designers to work with electronics, by abstracting away the often complicated details of electronics so they can focus on their own objectives. Massimo Banzi and Casey Reas (known for his work on Processing) were supervisors for my thesis. The project received plenty of attention at IDII, and was used for several other projects from 2004, up until the closure of the school in 2005.
What is Arduino?
Arduino is a prototype platform (open-source) based on an easy-to-use hardware and software. It consists of a circuit board, which can be programed (referred to as a micro-controller) and a ready-made software called Arduino IDE (Integrated Development Environment), which is used to write and upload the computer code to the physical board. The key features are :
- Arduino boards are able to read analog or digital input signals from different sensors and turn it into an output such as activating a motor, turning LED on/off, connect to the cloud and many other actions.
- You can control your board functions by sending a set of instructions to the microcontroller on the board via Arduino IDE (referred to as uploading software).
- Unlike most previous programmable circuit boards, Arduino does not need an extra piece of hardware (called a programmer) in order to load a new code onto the board. You can simply use a USB cable.
- Additionally, the Arduino IDE uses a simplified version of C++, making it easier to learn to program.
- Finally, Arduino provides a standard form factor that breaks the functions of the micro-controller into a more accessible package.
Project #1: Blinking LED
Project #2: Button LED
Project #3: Flowing LED
Project #4: LCD Display
Project #5: Serial Monitor