2015-08-24
This week lets cover getting started with Arduino.
What's Arduino? "Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for anyone making interactive projects." -- https://www.arduino.cc/
Arduino is a gentle entry into the world of physical computing, IoT, etc. Arduino is at the center of things like the 3D printing movement. Large corporations have been doing 3D printing for a long time, but not until Arduino was born did it become practical for the hobbyist to build their own.
We'll focus primarily on the software aspects of Arduino leaving the electronics/electrical/circuit design stuff for another discussion.
We'll explore:
- The high-level components of the Arduino and what they may be used for.
- Installation and configuration of the host computer.
- The Arduino IDE
- The subset of C that you write code in
- The libraries/functions that come with Arduino
- We'll walk through a couple of the sample programs "sketches"; blink and button specifically.
Note: If you are already an experienced Arduino tinkerer, please consider bringing your Arduino(s) and helping others get setup to play.
I'll have 2 Arduino on hand to try out, hoping to get volunteers to lend more.
Resources:
- Arduino - https://www.arduino.cc/
- Arduino IDE - https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software
- Lady Ada Arduino Tutorial - http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/
- Great intro video (10 mins) / software portion starts at minute 6:40 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F054MNB1QI