Arduino is an open-source platform used for building electronics projects. Arduino consists of both a physical programmable circuit board (often referred to as a micro-controller) and a piece of software, or IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that runs on your computer, used to write and upload computer code to the physical board.
The Arduino platform has become quite popular with people just starting out with electronics, and for good reason. Unlike most previous programmable circuit boards, the Arduino does not need a separate piece of hardware (called a programmer) in order to load 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 out the functions of the micro-controller into a more accessible package.
Some people think of the entire Arduino board as a micro-controller, but this is inaccurate. The Arduino board actually is a specially designed circuit board for programming and prototyping with Atmel micro-controllers.
The nice thing about the Arduino board is that it is relatively cheap, plugs straight into a computer's USB port, and it is dead-simple to setup and use (compared to other development boards).
Key features :
An open source design. The advantage of it being open source is that it has a large community of people using and troubleshooting it. This makes it easy to find someone to help you debug your projects.
An easy USB interface . The chip on the board plugs straight into your USB port and registers on your computer as a virtual serial port. This allows you to interface with it as through it were a serial device. The benefit of this setup is that serial communication is an extremely easy (and time-tested) protocol, and USB makes connecting it to modern computers really convenient.
Very convenient power management and built-in voltage regulation. You can connect an external power source of up to 12V and it will regulate it to both 5V and 3.3V. It also can be powered directly off of a USB port without any external power.
An easy-to-find, and dirt cheap, micro-controller "brain." The ATmega328 chip retails for about $2.88 on Digikey. It has countless number of nice hardware features like timers, PWM pins, external and internal interrupts, and multiple sleep modes. Check out the official datasheet for more details.
A 16Mhz clock. This makes it not the speediest micro-controller arou
nd, but fast enough for most applications.
32 KB of flash memory for storing your code.
13 digital pins and 6 analog pins. These pins allow you to connect external hardware to your Arduino. These pins are key for extending the computing capability of the Arduino into the real world. Simply plug your devices and sensors into the sockets that correspond to each of these pins and you are good to go.
An ICSP connector for bypassing the USB port and interfacing the Arduino directly as a serial device. This port is necessary to re-bootload your chip if it corrupts and can no longer talk to your computer.
An on-board LED attached to digital pin 13 for fast an easy debugging of code.
And last, but not least, a button to reset the program on the chip.
The Arduino platform has become quite popular with people just starting out with electronics, and for good reason. Unlike most previous programmable circuit boards, the Arduino does not need a separate piece of hardware (called a programmer) in order to load 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 out the functions of the micro-controller into a more accessible package.
Some people think of the entire Arduino board as a micro-controller, but this is inaccurate. The Arduino board actually is a specially designed circuit board for programming and prototyping with Atmel micro-controllers.
The nice thing about the Arduino board is that it is relatively cheap, plugs straight into a computer's USB port, and it is dead-simple to setup and use (compared to other development boards).
Key features :
An open source design. The advantage of it being open source is that it has a large community of people using and troubleshooting it. This makes it easy to find someone to help you debug your projects.
An easy USB interface . The chip on the board plugs straight into your USB port and registers on your computer as a virtual serial port. This allows you to interface with it as through it were a serial device. The benefit of this setup is that serial communication is an extremely easy (and time-tested) protocol, and USB makes connecting it to modern computers really convenient.
Very convenient power management and built-in voltage regulation. You can connect an external power source of up to 12V and it will regulate it to both 5V and 3.3V. It also can be powered directly off of a USB port without any external power.
An easy-to-find, and dirt cheap, micro-controller "brain." The ATmega328 chip retails for about $2.88 on Digikey. It has countless number of nice hardware features like timers, PWM pins, external and internal interrupts, and multiple sleep modes. Check out the official datasheet for more details.
A 16Mhz clock. This makes it not the speediest micro-controller arou
32 KB of flash memory for storing your code.
13 digital pins and 6 analog pins. These pins allow you to connect external hardware to your Arduino. These pins are key for extending the computing capability of the Arduino into the real world. Simply plug your devices and sensors into the sockets that correspond to each of these pins and you are good to go.
An ICSP connector for bypassing the USB port and interfacing the Arduino directly as a serial device. This port is necessary to re-bootload your chip if it corrupts and can no longer talk to your computer.
An on-board LED attached to digital pin 13 for fast an easy debugging of code.
And last, but not least, a button to reset the program on the chip.
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