An Arduino is an open-hardware micro-controller that comes in a variety of “official” configurations. Any official Arduino board is listed on the Arduino website. As it is open-hardware, however, anyone is free to build their own unofficial design — they can even choose to request approval as an official board.

The RobotShop has a decent video, demonstrating the differences among the official boards.



In addition to Arduino boards individuals can purchase Arduino “Shields” that can be plugged in on top of the Arduino PCB to extend its capabilities. Extended boards can communicate wirelessly over distances up to 300 feet, record video, employ convenient “breadboarding”, read sensors, control motors, interface with touchscreens, etc.

I have been following the Arduino project for some time at a distance and finally decided to try it out.

After searching, I found two major starter kits, the Sparkfun Inventor’s Kit and Official Arduino Starter Kit.

EDIT: There are new versions of these kits available on Amazon (and of course elsewhere, but I find Amazon Prime addicting) Here:Sparkfun Inventor’s Kit for Arduino – V3.2 with new Simon Says circuit experiment and Here:Official-Arduino-Starter-Deluxe-Bundle

They both provide step by step tutorials depicting how to build the following projects, the official Arduino kit utilizes you-tube videos, the Sparkfun kit utilizes PDF lessons:

Sainsmart also has a number of starter kits as well as Adafruit’s Starterpack.