Arduino

I’ve been playing around with my Arduino recently. I’m not sure where the name came from, but River and I agreed that it was fun to say. Try it out, if you like.

Arduino is a tool for making computers that can sense and control more of the physical world than your desktop computer. It’s an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple microcontroller board, and a development environment for writing software for the board.

Arduino can be used to develop interactive objects, taking inputs from a variety of switches or sensors, and controlling a variety of lights, motors, and other physical outputs. Arduino projects can be stand-alone, or they can be communicate with software running on your computer.

from The Arduino Guide

I bought an Arduino starter kit and having been following the tutorial from LadyAda. I started by putting together the prototyping shield with a breadboard which makes it even easier to add new hardware components. My soldering skills seem to be improving and it went very smoothly. I’ve gone through the first few tutorials, which are pretty basic so far. My Arduino can light up the LEDs!

I’ve been watching the many cool projects based on Arduinos appearing on the Make blog. I’m looking forward to learning more.