Getting Started With Arduino | Everything You Need to Know About Arduino

Hi Geeks! I’m gonna introduce an amazing electronics prototyping platform called ARDUINO. Many of you are already aware of this wonderful electronics development platform. Of course, this is designed to meet electronics hobbyists and geeks. I strongly recommend this tool for Engineering students who are looking to study embedded systems. Arduino is open-source and absolutely FREE! That sounds greater.

Basically, Arduino boards are built around Atmel’s Atmega series microcontrollers or ARM microcontrollers. Due to its popularity and ease of use, it turns out to be the favorite microcontroller for all. This is an introduction Arduino tutorial covering the basics and history of Arduino.

What Is an Arduino Board

• An Arduino is a circuit board that has an Atmel’s Atmega chip on it that can be programmed to do many different things. You can read information from sensors like LDS, Motion sensors, GPS receivers, etc. It has two principal parts 1) Arduino board, which is the hardware section that you work on. 2) Arduino IDE, the portion of the software for programming Arduino.
• You can also have sensor values goes right into your computer for storing or processing external data received.
• Arduino code can be uploaded to the Arduino board with the help of free software by USB. USB programming capability makes Arduino more flexible.
• You can reprogram the code over and over…
• The Arduino programming language is an execution of Wiring, a standardized physical computing platform, which is based on the Processing multimedia programming environment.
• Arduino is cross-platform- The IDE (Integrated Development Environment) of Arduino runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac.
• There is so much you can do with Arduino, it’s kind of incredible.

• Robotics is made easy with Arduino… Why are you waiting? Buy one Arduino board and start your workshop today with cool Arduino projects.

Why Arduino

• There are different kinds of Microcontrollers available, but why Arduino is so popular? Arduino reduces the method of working with microcontrollers and it suggests some benefits for teachers and students over other systems. All, Arduino delivers a hassle-free environment to develop embedded codes and projects.
• While compared to other Microcontrollers Arduino has many advantages, of course, these features bring Arduino more popular.

Easy to Use Arduino environment is very easy to learn and develop hence Beginners can realize things rapid manner. Set in from the margin for teachers and students.

Open-source IDE: The software by which the Arduino can be programmed is FREE for all platforms. You can download it from the Arduino website. Other MCU platforms required paid software to run and upload program codes for example Mikro C for PIC.
Download Arduino software

Inexpensive: Arduino boards are fairly cheap compared to other microcontrollers. You may assemble an Arduino board by yourself or it is available to buy at a cost of less than $30.
Visit Arduino store

Flexible program code and uploading: The embedded codes of Arduino are so simple and IDE provides a reliable way to upload data to the Microcontroller.

History of Arduino

• The Arduino, a revolution of open hardware, was born in Ivrea, Italy. The name Arduino came from the name of one of their kings King Arduin who ruled in the year 1002 AD.
• The board Arduino developed by Massimo Banzi and team (David Cuartielles, Tom Igoe, Gianluca Martino, and David Mellis.). David A. Mellis was the chief software developer of Arduino IDE.

Read more about Arduino development history

Build Your Arduino Lab

This article is just an introduction to Arduino and its features. In our upcoming articles, I would like to share more circuits based on Arduino. In order to start your Arduino labs get the following requirements.

1. PC or Laptop (Windows, Linux, or Mac)
2. Arduino board: Have look through the Arduino store and buy one suitable kit for your development or assemble one Arduino kit by yourself.
3. Arduino Software: IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for your coding and uploading program to Arduino chip. Download Arduino software from here.
4. USB cable

For more information regarding Arduino, you may please check Arduino’s official website http://arduino.cc/

Conclusion

Be ready with these tools, my next article will be a DIY Arduino project called Digital Clock with Alarm using Arduino. It is the best Arduino project for beginners. Till then check out some of our Electronics projects and DIY stuff.