What to Look for in an Arduino Starter Kit

Arduino starter kits come packed with information and hardware. However, each kit differs from the other in one way or another. Therefore, it is vital that you know how to identify the best kit, as your learning progress will be greatly determined by the hardware you use and the tutorials you do.

The first thing you should consider is the center piece hardware that your starter kit has. By centerpiece hardware, we mean the microcontroller board that the tutorials will be centered on. Most of the kits usually use an Arduino UNO R3 board which is the flagship board of the Arduino platform. There are some kits that use other variations of the Arduino UNO R3 board. In that case, you should check to ensure that the microcontroller board in question is fully compatible with the UNO R3.

Since you cannot use the Arduino board alone, you have to check the number and kind of electronic components and parts that the kit has. There should be many passive and active components to enable you to carry out as many tutorials as possible. This way you will be able to learn more from the kit.

As a newbie, you probably don’t know head from tail when it comes to doing hardware connections and programming the Arduino board. Therefore, you need some guiding hand in the form of online beginner tutorials, a connection manual or a tutorial book. Every Arduino starter kit should have some manual or guidebook that you can use during the learning process.

Now that you know what you need in an Arduino starter kit, we can proceed and look at some popular Arduino starter kits in the market.