Make: Sensors

Chapter 2. Arduino

Arduino is a simple and robust development board (Figure 2-1). It’s one of the simplest options available for making the electronics world programmable, and it’s extremely reliable as well.

Figure 2-1. Arduino connections

It doesn’t take much to get started with Arduino. To make something interesting happen, you just need an Arduino Uno and a USB cable; together, it shouldn’t cost more than $35 or $40 USD. The software is free (the source code is available for people to use, study, modify, and share with others).

First, we’ll show you how to install the Arduino development environment (often called IDE, or integrated development ...