5 ms·

Inside the box: Everything I did with an Arduino starter kit

157 points by lopespm 1y ago

rfarley04 1y ago
Oh my god you have no idea how timely this is. I just bought one last week. This post is perfect.
- ElCapitanMarkla 1y ago
  Me too, I just brought one on Monday :D
ja27 1y ago
Addressable LEDs (strips, rings, panels) are really cool to play with too.
- patrickk 1y ago
  https://github.com/hyperion-project/hyperion.ng https://github.com/hyperion-project/hyperion.ng For a DIY version of Philips Ambilight is a really cool implementation of addressable LEDs. The Wled project is another amazing implementation. It allows the creation of all sorts of light fixtures, there’s some insane setups on YouTube.
  - whatusername 1y ago
    And the next step down that rabbit hole is xlights: https://github.com/xLightsSequencer/xLights https://github.com/xLightsSequencer/xLights
hi_hi 1y ago
These starter kits are great. I'm a complete electronics newbie but was always interested, but found the sheer choice of equipment on offer, and the fear of buying a bunch of kit that wasn't compatible to be a barrier to getting started. I came across a kit for the Micro:bit which I purchased as a Christmas gift for my young daughter. It's really captured that delight in working with technology for me again. Even starting with the LED "Hello World" examples, as described in the post here, led (haha, whata pun) me down a rabbit hole when I noticed blue lights were flickering, while red ones were fine. I thought it was a defective LED, but it turns out power requirements vary depending on wavelength of light being generated. I never would have considered that in a million years, but then of course you get deeper into the physics of all this, and it's just fascinating. All thanks to a kids electronics starter kit. I've purchased a few other bits and bobs now, and discovered simulators so you can build out your breadboard circuits without fear of frying components (luckily the kits include a few LEDs as I learnt the hard way!) I'm now onto trying to build out a magic wand for my daughter to control the house smart lights with gestures as she's just got into Harry Potter. I love how there's a whole hobby community around this stuff too, and the basic websites with datasheets and descriptions of the various gizmos and archaic "warnings". It reminds me of learning 3d graphics development back in the day, when openGL was the goto, and building things up from the math concepts without layer upon layer of abstractions and opinions getting in the way.
- JayNitram 1y ago
  Are there any particular simulators you would recommend?
  - HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
    Wokwi seems to be the most popular Arduino-based one. I'm not a huge fan of simulation for cases like this. The arduino forums are full of "it worked in simulation, but not on my breadboard..." complaints. Also, simulation won't teach you not to connect a 10ohm resistor across a 12V supply and then touch it. Or that capacitors may explode when connected in reverse polarity, or just how to be careful in general. There's a lot of stuff that should become second nature, but you'll only learn by connecting physical circuits.
  - hi_hi 1y ago
    I have no idea if this is considered good, but I've started with https://www.tinkercad.com/ https://www.tinkercad.com/ There may be better ones out there, I just found this quite accessible to get started with.
- HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
  > but it turns out power requirements vary depending on wavelength of light being generated. [pedantic] It's actually because of the different forward voltages of the blue LED vs red, not the overall power [/pedantic] Clearly, I knew what you were getting at, but I made that comment because it's useful to understand that LEDs are primarily current controlled devices, not voltage controlled. Had you driven both LEDs with e.g., a 10mA constant-current driver, they would both be solidly visible. For a regular indicator LED, this isn't really an issue (other than a too-low voltage will cause the flickering you observed), but for high-power illumination LEDs, or especially laser diodes, current management can be the difference between reliable operation or letting the smoke get out.
  - hi_hi 1y ago
    Thank you. I appreciate the correction. I knew I was in murky waters with that bit as it was a while ago and I don't have the best memory :-)
poulpy123 1y ago
My issue with these kits is that you learn Arduino programming, not really electronics
- zild3d 1y ago
  I think it's actually a fantastic intro to electronics. There's nothing you can really do with "just arduino programming", the whole point is it lets you interface with the real world and therefor encounter electronics problems by default The article even touches on that in the first hello world > This simple exercise it by itself incredibly interesting that opened a series of questions: > Q: Why is a resistor needed? A: High current and increased temperature damage its delicate heterojunction structures, which eventually cause it to burnout > Q: What happens if the polarity is inverted? A: Similar to a normal diode, current will not flow and the LED will not light up. As long as this reverse power is not high, the LED will not burn and can still be used with correct polarity afterwards > Q: How to interpret its data sheet? A: There are several interesting aspects its datasheet, like the LED’s wavelength curve, operating current and voltage, etc
  - poulpy123 1y ago
    I had a look at the document of the kit, and it's like the one I have: it doesn't even explain what is a current and a tension, or what is the relation between resistance, tension and current, althought it is the basic of the basic of electronics The fact that the author uses the word heterojunction that is at the same time not useful at the first level for a beginner and not used or explained in the document shows that he was either already knowledgeable or spent a lot of time with other ressources to learn. I'm not saying that these kits are bad, or that nowaday you cannot do many great thing with just an arduino and plug and play components, but they don't teach electronics.
    - crashabr 1y ago
      Anything you recommend instead?
    - zild3d 1y ago
nick__m 1y ago
I hate those messy wire on the bread board! When I did my electronics technical diploma at CEGEP, we lost point if our wires were not perfect, they had to be of exact length, use only right angle, bus had to be color coded... I used to find that petty, my boards where on the messy side (but compared to the one from the article they were neat) but when I saw those horror that have more in common with an eurorack patch I understood what the teachers were trying to instill in us. Wires placement are like properly formatted code, it helps with readability and even with debugability. Sorry for the rant, i an back to yelling at the clouds!
rs186 1y ago
My biggest problem is that you get excited for the first few days, then you realize that there is very little you can learn from these toy projects, and then there isn't a project that is meaningful (to yourself) enough to persue. If you look at all those motors and sensors -- you need to think hard enough to come up with a project that makes good use of them. I browsed maybe 50 of the most viewed project on arduino website to get inspired. There are may be 1 or 2 that somewhat interest me. Based on impression coming from secondhand marketplace listings, my very uninformed guess is that 70% of Arduino kits and raspberry pi units purchased by amateurs are sitting in their home gathering dust, including mine.
- Applejinx 1y ago
  I have three within my range of vision if I lean a bit and look into another room, and only one gets used. And that's because I compile audio plugins to release VST2 on the Pi as a platform (compiling on a Pi 400) relying on Reaper as a host DAW. I'm not doing audio work on the Pi, though, just supporting the platform for those (?) who do (?). I would love to come up with cool things to do with Arduinos etc: I hacked high sample rate support into Eurorack modules that ran on Teensy, and then the Teensy that had the raw audio output pin which supported this use, hit end of life so those modules cannot be replaced now, and what I have is all I'll ever have. The world of tiny computers is lovely but doesn't always stay accessible. For instance, I never got into hardware synth making that much, but these days all the oscillator chips etc. you'd want to hack with require robotic installation: they're too tiny for someone who grew up on DIP.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- theamk 1y ago
  Some sort of class helps here a lot - not as much as actual tutoring, but just as motivation and audience that you can show off your projects to. A tea-making robot you made at your home is boring. A tea-making robot you made during class which participated in end-of-class competition and got 3rd place? Much more interesting. And if you are in CA, there is Robogames which has (or at least had in the past) categories such as "art bot" (any Arduino project which has a moving part can participate) and even "static bot" (for projects without moving parts). You get to demo your project to few hundred participants, and maybe even get a prize!
spapas82 1y ago
I had also recorded some of my projects with an Arduino starter kit here https://github.com/spapas/arduino-projects https://github.com/spapas/arduino-projects
alabhyajindal 1y ago
Is getting a kit like this the recommended way to learn electronics? I don't know anything about it! I would like to get to the point where I can light up a LED bulb programmatically and understand how it's happening.
- stagger87 1y ago
  There is no one way to learn electronics. The Arduino will hold your hand through lighting up an LED, but depending on how much depth you want, may not teach you how it's happening. Working with an Arduino is like bowling with bumpers, which is a good place to start.
- jschveibinz 1y ago
  You could probably spend less and learn more about electronics by buying a few key components like a transistor, a LED, a 9v battery, a switch, a few resistors, a few capacitors and some insulated wire. You don't even need a breadboard--you can tape or clip things together just to see what's happening. There are tons of simple circuits and tutorials for just these components.
Arch-TK 1y ago
I can't comment on how good these things are for learning electronics but I find a lot of people who learn embedded development or programming from Arduino end up learning an endless number of bad practices. I think C++ is a terrible programming language to give to people with potentially no prior programming or at last no prior C++ experience. And for people who _do_ know C++, it's just a weird environment full of strange hacks (may as well just go straight for bare metal).
- bityard 1y ago
  Teaching academically-correct C++ is not one of Arduino's goals. C++ just happens to be one of the tools in the box. EE's complain that Arduino doesn't teach correct electronic circuit design principles. Which is also not one of its goals. The point of Arduino is to learn how--with nothing but a cheap microcontroller and some wires--to make lights blink, sensors sense, and servos serve. It's a starting point for easy and cheap experimentation, not a well-structured curriculum.
  - Arch-TK 1y ago
    Just to try to understand your point. Are you saying that there is no bad or irresponsible way to teach something? If I teach you to weld and don't explain welding gloves, long sleeves, or welding helmets, is that still okay or is it crossing a line because someone's safety is at stake? What if someone takes their arduino learning's and starts controlling dangerous things like heating elements for pressure vessels? Would you agree now that its irresponsible? (Actual real world cases of exactly this.) Or if someone who used arduino thinks their C++ is great and writes network facing software which controls a heated pressure vessel (again, actual real world cases of exactly this).
bityard 1y ago
It's great that these kits are available and fairly cheap. But as it turns out, the kit that TFA links to is a Chinese clone of Arduino and none of the profits made on that kit contribute to further development of Arduino hardware, software, documentation, community, and so on. I'm not saying don't buy this kit, what I am saying is if you find yourself needing or wanting a second dev board, consider purchasing an official Ardiuno from https://store.arduino.cc https://store.arduino.cc to support the folks that made all of this happen in the first place.
- dekhn 1y ago
  I don't think there is much value in the arduino hardware and the value of the arduino software is mainly in it being a standard SDK that works across a wide range of microcontrollers.
  - hnuser123456 1y ago
    But if you want the software to continue getting updates and support more chips, and support the people doing that work, buying an official one is a good idea.
    - dekhn 1y ago
      I have really mixed opinions on whether I want to support the Arduino folks with my money. When I use tools like PlatformIO and the ESP32 ecosystem with FreeRTOS, I begin to wonder if we can evolve away from Arduino, or treat it as some sort of legacy backwards API while porting all the drivers to FreeRTOS with platform-specific details.
      - bityard 1y ago
        Who is "we"? There are many options for working with microcontrollers at the hobbyist level and that's because there are many different needs. It sounds like you don't need/use Arduino and that's fine. My comment was targeted at folks to do or are just getting started.
- 1y ago
Yenrabbit 1y ago
This is going to be my go-to reference for 'how should I get started with electronics' - getting to see various capabilities (sense things, move motors, flash LEDs) without having to purchase parts while not knowing what you don't know is fantastic. Props for pushing through all the projects - I look forward to seeing what you make with these new skills :)
tmaly 1y ago
I have also found that many of these Arduino projects will also work with MicroBit. This makes it easier for kids to get started as Microsoft MakeCode offers the ability to program with MicroBit with block coding as well as Python and Javascript.
soundblaster 1y ago
This is fun, but the hard part really is when you want to migrate from the prototype to something embedded. You won't deploy a development board for mass (your friends) production, or yes. I think there's a gap there that few people teach. How to design a PCB, and hook up an enclousure, doesn't need to be a 3D printed thing

157 points by lopespm 1y ago

rfarley04 1y ago

Oh my god you have no idea how timely this is. I just bought one last week. This post is perfect.

ElCapitanMarkla 1y ago
Me too, I just brought one on Monday :D

ja27 1y ago

Addressable LEDs (strips, rings, panels) are really cool to play with too.

patrickk 1y ago
https://github.com/hyperion-project/hyperion.ng https://github.com/hyperion-project/hyperion.ng For a DIY version of Philips Ambilight is a really cool implementation of addressable LEDs. The Wled project is another amazing implementation. It allows the creation of all sorts of light fixtures, there’s some insane setups on YouTube.
- whatusername 1y ago
  And the next step down that rabbit hole is xlights: https://github.com/xLightsSequencer/xLights https://github.com/xLightsSequencer/xLights

hi_hi 1y ago

These starter kits are great. I'm a complete electronics newbie but was always interested, but found the sheer choice of equipment on offer, and the fear of buying a bunch of kit that wasn't compatible to be a barrier to getting started. I came across a kit for the Micro:bit which I purchased as a Christmas gift for my young daughter. It's really captured that delight in working with technology for me again. Even starting with the LED "Hello World" examples, as described in the post here, led (haha, whata pun) me down a rabbit hole when I noticed blue lights were flickering, while red ones were fine. I thought it was a defective LED, but it turns out power requirements vary depending on wavelength of light being generated. I never would have considered that in a million years, but then of course you get deeper into the physics of all this, and it's just fascinating. All thanks to a kids electronics starter kit. I've purchased a few other bits and bobs now, and discovered simulators so you can build out your breadboard circuits without fear of frying components (luckily the kits include a few LEDs as I learnt the hard way!) I'm now onto trying to build out a magic wand for my daughter to control the house smart lights with gestures as she's just got into Harry Potter. I love how there's a whole hobby community around this stuff too, and the basic websites with datasheets and descriptions of the various gizmos and archaic "warnings". It reminds me of learning 3d graphics development back in the day, when openGL was the goto, and building things up from the math concepts without layer upon layer of abstractions and opinions getting in the way.

JayNitram 1y ago
Are there any particular simulators you would recommend?
- HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
  Wokwi seems to be the most popular Arduino-based one. I'm not a huge fan of simulation for cases like this. The arduino forums are full of "it worked in simulation, but not on my breadboard..." complaints. Also, simulation won't teach you not to connect a 10ohm resistor across a 12V supply and then touch it. Or that capacitors may explode when connected in reverse polarity, or just how to be careful in general. There's a lot of stuff that should become second nature, but you'll only learn by connecting physical circuits.
- hi_hi 1y ago
  I have no idea if this is considered good, but I've started with https://www.tinkercad.com/ https://www.tinkercad.com/ There may be better ones out there, I just found this quite accessible to get started with.
HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
> but it turns out power requirements vary depending on wavelength of light being generated. [pedantic] It's actually because of the different forward voltages of the blue LED vs red, not the overall power [/pedantic] Clearly, I knew what you were getting at, but I made that comment because it's useful to understand that LEDs are primarily current controlled devices, not voltage controlled. Had you driven both LEDs with e.g., a 10mA constant-current driver, they would both be solidly visible. For a regular indicator LED, this isn't really an issue (other than a too-low voltage will cause the flickering you observed), but for high-power illumination LEDs, or especially laser diodes, current management can be the difference between reliable operation or letting the smoke get out.
- hi_hi 1y ago
  Thank you. I appreciate the correction. I knew I was in murky waters with that bit as it was a while ago and I don't have the best memory :-)

poulpy123 1y ago

My issue with these kits is that you learn Arduino programming, not really electronics

zild3d 1y ago
I think it's actually a fantastic intro to electronics. There's nothing you can really do with "just arduino programming", the whole point is it lets you interface with the real world and therefor encounter electronics problems by default The article even touches on that in the first hello world > This simple exercise it by itself incredibly interesting that opened a series of questions: > Q: Why is a resistor needed? A: High current and increased temperature damage its delicate heterojunction structures, which eventually cause it to burnout > Q: What happens if the polarity is inverted? A: Similar to a normal diode, current will not flow and the LED will not light up. As long as this reverse power is not high, the LED will not burn and can still be used with correct polarity afterwards > Q: How to interpret its data sheet? A: There are several interesting aspects its datasheet, like the LED’s wavelength curve, operating current and voltage, etc
- poulpy123 1y ago
  I had a look at the document of the kit, and it's like the one I have: it doesn't even explain what is a current and a tension, or what is the relation between resistance, tension and current, althought it is the basic of the basic of electronics The fact that the author uses the word heterojunction that is at the same time not useful at the first level for a beginner and not used or explained in the document shows that he was either already knowledgeable or spent a lot of time with other ressources to learn. I'm not saying that these kits are bad, or that nowaday you cannot do many great thing with just an arduino and plug and play components, but they don't teach electronics.
  - crashabr 1y ago
    Anything you recommend instead?
  - zild3d 1y ago

nick__m 1y ago

I hate those messy wire on the bread board! When I did my electronics technical diploma at CEGEP, we lost point if our wires were not perfect, they had to be of exact length, use only right angle, bus had to be color coded... I used to find that petty, my boards where on the messy side (but compared to the one from the article they were neat) but when I saw those horror that have more in common with an eurorack patch I understood what the teachers were trying to instill in us. Wires placement are like properly formatted code, it helps with readability and even with debugability. Sorry for the rant, i an back to yelling at the clouds!

rs186 1y ago

My biggest problem is that you get excited for the first few days, then you realize that there is very little you can learn from these toy projects, and then there isn't a project that is meaningful (to yourself) enough to persue. If you look at all those motors and sensors -- you need to think hard enough to come up with a project that makes good use of them. I browsed maybe 50 of the most viewed project on arduino website to get inspired. There are may be 1 or 2 that somewhat interest me. Based on impression coming from secondhand marketplace listings, my very uninformed guess is that 70% of Arduino kits and raspberry pi units purchased by amateurs are sitting in their home gathering dust, including mine.

Applejinx 1y ago
I have three within my range of vision if I lean a bit and look into another room, and only one gets used. And that's because I compile audio plugins to release VST2 on the Pi as a platform (compiling on a Pi 400) relying on Reaper as a host DAW. I'm not doing audio work on the Pi, though, just supporting the platform for those (?) who do (?). I would love to come up with cool things to do with Arduinos etc: I hacked high sample rate support into Eurorack modules that ran on Teensy, and then the Teensy that had the raw audio output pin which supported this use, hit end of life so those modules cannot be replaced now, and what I have is all I'll ever have. The world of tiny computers is lovely but doesn't always stay accessible. For instance, I never got into hardware synth making that much, but these days all the oscillator chips etc. you'd want to hack with require robotic installation: they're too tiny for someone who grew up on DIP.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
theamk 1y ago
Some sort of class helps here a lot - not as much as actual tutoring, but just as motivation and audience that you can show off your projects to. A tea-making robot you made at your home is boring. A tea-making robot you made during class which participated in end-of-class competition and got 3rd place? Much more interesting. And if you are in CA, there is Robogames which has (or at least had in the past) categories such as "art bot" (any Arduino project which has a moving part can participate) and even "static bot" (for projects without moving parts). You get to demo your project to few hundred participants, and maybe even get a prize!

spapas82 1y ago

I had also recorded some of my projects with an Arduino starter kit here https://github.com/spapas/arduino-projects https://github.com/spapas/arduino-projects

alabhyajindal 1y ago

Is getting a kit like this the recommended way to learn electronics? I don't know anything about it! I would like to get to the point where I can light up a LED bulb programmatically and understand how it's happening.

stagger87 1y ago
There is no one way to learn electronics. The Arduino will hold your hand through lighting up an LED, but depending on how much depth you want, may not teach you how it's happening. Working with an Arduino is like bowling with bumpers, which is a good place to start.
jschveibinz 1y ago
You could probably spend less and learn more about electronics by buying a few key components like a transistor, a LED, a 9v battery, a switch, a few resistors, a few capacitors and some insulated wire. You don't even need a breadboard--you can tape or clip things together just to see what's happening. There are tons of simple circuits and tutorials for just these components.

Arch-TK 1y ago

I can't comment on how good these things are for learning electronics but I find a lot of people who learn embedded development or programming from Arduino end up learning an endless number of bad practices. I think C++ is a terrible programming language to give to people with potentially no prior programming or at last no prior C++ experience. And for people who _do_ know C++, it's just a weird environment full of strange hacks (may as well just go straight for bare metal).

bityard 1y ago
Teaching academically-correct C++ is not one of Arduino's goals. C++ just happens to be one of the tools in the box. EE's complain that Arduino doesn't teach correct electronic circuit design principles. Which is also not one of its goals. The point of Arduino is to learn how--with nothing but a cheap microcontroller and some wires--to make lights blink, sensors sense, and servos serve. It's a starting point for easy and cheap experimentation, not a well-structured curriculum.
- Arch-TK 1y ago
  Just to try to understand your point. Are you saying that there is no bad or irresponsible way to teach something? If I teach you to weld and don't explain welding gloves, long sleeves, or welding helmets, is that still okay or is it crossing a line because someone's safety is at stake? What if someone takes their arduino learning's and starts controlling dangerous things like heating elements for pressure vessels? Would you agree now that its irresponsible? (Actual real world cases of exactly this.) Or if someone who used arduino thinks their C++ is great and writes network facing software which controls a heated pressure vessel (again, actual real world cases of exactly this).

bityard 1y ago

It's great that these kits are available and fairly cheap. But as it turns out, the kit that TFA links to is a Chinese clone of Arduino and none of the profits made on that kit contribute to further development of Arduino hardware, software, documentation, community, and so on. I'm not saying don't buy this kit, what I am saying is if you find yourself needing or wanting a second dev board, consider purchasing an official Ardiuno from https://store.arduino.cc https://store.arduino.cc to support the folks that made all of this happen in the first place.

dekhn 1y ago
I don't think there is much value in the arduino hardware and the value of the arduino software is mainly in it being a standard SDK that works across a wide range of microcontrollers.
- hnuser123456 1y ago
  But if you want the software to continue getting updates and support more chips, and support the people doing that work, buying an official one is a good idea.
  - dekhn 1y ago
    I have really mixed opinions on whether I want to support the Arduino folks with my money. When I use tools like PlatformIO and the ESP32 ecosystem with FreeRTOS, I begin to wonder if we can evolve away from Arduino, or treat it as some sort of legacy backwards API while porting all the drivers to FreeRTOS with platform-specific details.
    - bityard 1y ago
      Who is "we"? There are many options for working with microcontrollers at the hobbyist level and that's because there are many different needs. It sounds like you don't need/use Arduino and that's fine. My comment was targeted at folks to do or are just getting started.
1y ago

Yenrabbit 1y ago

This is going to be my go-to reference for 'how should I get started with electronics' - getting to see various capabilities (sense things, move motors, flash LEDs) without having to purchase parts while not knowing what you don't know is fantastic. Props for pushing through all the projects - I look forward to seeing what you make with these new skills :)

tmaly 1y ago

I have also found that many of these Arduino projects will also work with MicroBit. This makes it easier for kids to get started as Microsoft MakeCode offers the ability to program with MicroBit with block coding as well as Python and Javascript.

soundblaster 1y ago

This is fun, but the hard part really is when you want to migrate from the prototype to something embedded. You won't deploy a development board for mass (your friends) production, or yes. I think there's a gap there that few people teach. How to design a PCB, and hook up an enclousure, doesn't need to be a 3D printed thing