Introduction
So what really is an Arduino? Arduino is an open-source software and hardware company based in Italy that makes single-board microcontrollers used for digital tasks. These boards come equipped with different analog and digital I/O pins. That is used to communicate with other hardware or electronic devices.
So It uses C,C++ as its primary programming language with small changes to make this small micro-controller as easy as possible to use.
There are many different types of Arduino’s . All of them share one thing in common. That is that they are all designed to communicate with different electronic devices.
Uses of Arduino
You can do basically anything you can think of in electronics and robotics with the help of an Arduino. And that includes things like robots and Entire enterprise hardware systems. Over the years Arduino has been the brain of thousands of projects, from everyday objects to complex scientific instruments. A worldwide community of makers – students, hobbyists, artists, programmers, and professionals has gathered around this open-source platform. Their contributions have added up to an incredible amount of accessible knowledge. That can be of great help to novices and experts alike.
Why Arduino?
There are a couple of reasons why is the most suitable platform for developing hardware projects and applications and they are
- Inexpensive – These boards are relatively inexpensive compared to other microcontroller platforms. The least expensive version of the module can be assembled by hand. And even the pre-assembled modules cost less than \$50
- Cross-platform – The Arduino’s Software (IDE) runs on Windows, Macintosh OSX, and Linux operating systems. Most microcontroller systems are limited to Windows.
- Simple, clear programming environment – The Software (IDE) is easy-to-use for beginners. Yet flexible enough for advanced users to take advantage of as well. For teachers, it’s conveniently based on the Processing programming environment. So students learning to program in that environment will be familiar with how the IDE works.
- Open source and extensible software – The software is published as open-source tools, available for extension by experienced programmers. The language can be expanded through C++ libraries. And people wanting to understand the technical details can make the leap from C++ to the AVR C programming language on which it’s based. Similarly, you can add AVR-C code directly into your programs if you want to.
- Open source and extensible hardware – The plans of the boards are published under a Creative Commons license. So experienced circuit designers can make their own version of the module, extending it and improving it. Even relatively inexperienced users can build the breadboard version of the module in order to understand it And how it works and save money.
Types of Arduino
- Arduino UNO
- Arduino Mega
- Arduino Leonardo
- Arduino Nano
- Arduino Micro
- Arduino Mini
These are perhaps the most used types of these boards. There are a lot more of these things than I have just mentioned.
Getting started
We will be needing the following to start off
- An Arduino UNO
- A USB Type B
- A computer to program the Arduino
- An LED
- A BreadBoard(optional)
- And a Resistor(optional)
So to get started with using an Arduino we first need to install all the necessary software that will be needed to interact with the Board for our case we just need the IDE to start working with the Arduino.
Installation
So first, we need to install the Arduino IDE. head over to this site and install the latest and greatest version of the software for your operating system.
So open up the IDE it will look something like this at the first glance
The Hardware
To be honest there isn’t much to get the hardware up and running. So perhaps the only thing you will need to do is to connect the Arduino UNO to the computer via the USB-B cable
What we will be doing
Furthermore, we will be making an extremely simple program that will blink an external LED. Moreover, it will give you an idea of how Arduino works and how can we program them to do different tasks for us
It should be noted that this is how I have connected the Arduino with the LED on the breadboard.
Firstly the negative terminal of the LED is connected to the ground Pin on the Arduino and the other Pin 13 is connected to the positive terminal of the LED.
Also now is the part where we dive into the code of the Board.
int led = 13; // set the "led" variable as 13
void setup() {
pinMode(led, OUTPUT); // designate port 13 as output
}
void loop() {
digitalWrite(led, HIGH); // turn the led on
delay(1000); // wait for 1 second
digitalWrite(led, LOW); // turn the led off
delay(1000); // wait for a second
}This is an extremely simple program. That serves as an example of Arduino’s work. And how we can use these micro-controllers to do so much work for us.
Conclusion
So at the end of this blog, we learned a lot of things about these tiny devices. which can do a lot to help us in our IoT projects and create hardware projects from small led blinkers to an entire traffic signaling system the possibilities with this device are endless and we can do a lot with it.