It has been a week of learning Arduino, my colleagues had already practised it. I had just joined at the beginning of the week therefore I needed to catch up with them by doing some of the things that they had already done.

What is Arduino?

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.

Figure: Sparkfun red board programmed by Arduino

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 communicate with software running on your computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP.) The boards can be assembled by hand or purchased preassembled; the open-source IDE can be downloaded for free.

The Arduino programming language is an implementation of Wiring, a similar physical computing platform, which is based on the Processing multimedia programming environment.

Why Arduino?

• Inexpensive – Arduino boards are relatively inexpensive compared to other microcontroller platforms.
• Cross-platform – The Arduino software runs on Windows, Macintosh OSX, and Linux operating systems.
• Simple, clear programming environment – The Arduino programming environment is easy-to-use for beginners, yet flexible enough for advanced users to take advantage of as well.
• Open source and extensible software- The Arduino software is published as open source tools, available for extension by experienced programmers.
• Open source and extensible hardware – The Arduino is based on Atmel’s ATMEGA8 and ATMEGA168 microcontrollers. The plans for the modules are published under a Creative Commons license, so experienced circuit designers can make their own version of the module, extending it and improving it.

I have gained much knowledge as much as programming in Arduino is concerned and I look forward to learn more this coming week.