• Question: What's an Arduino?

    Asked by to Ian on 19 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Ian Stephenson

      Ian Stephenson answered on 19 Jun 2014:

      They’re super small and cheap single board computers, much less powerful than a Raspberry Pi, but also cheaper, and much better for building robots and the like.

      Check them out: http://www.arduino.cc

      You can use them to build any kind of smart gadget, with flashing lights and buttons. To get started all you need is a board (look on Ebay for Arduino Uno – they’re about £5) and a USB cable to program them with. You write the code on your regular computer, then program it into the Arduino.

      Once its programmed you can disconnect it, and it’ll run of batteries. It doesn’t have a screen or keyboard (unless you add one) because for most of the things you do with them you don’t need one.

      You can build robots, data recorders (temperature, light levels,sound levels), convert a Wii controller to use it as a computer mouse, whatever…

      They’re a great fun way to learn programming – drawing stuff on the screen is so old news!

      Also check out http://www.sniff.org.uk which is a cool and easy way to program them. If you’ve used Scratch then Sniff is designed to be the next step.

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