[Oomlout] has created an Arduino Experimentation Kit that uses basic sensors, buttons, and LEDs to teach electronics and programming. Printed overlays are secured on a breadboard, indicating components and connections. The Arduino is then used to drive the circuit. Examples include driving motors, using shift registers, and making beeps with a piezo element. These are backed up by explanations and code. The breadboarding kit is very similar to the classic 300-in-1 project kits marketed to beginners. In addition, all of the materials are released as open source. Kits are also available that include everything needed to create the circuits.
Related: Opensource Robotic Arm
[via Hack a Day flickr pool]
Perfect! What a great way to teach someone new to the Arduino arena how to use it and get started building things. I honestly wish that things like this could be found more locally and used with basic electronics to help reinforce fundamentals. I have loved using my Arduinos over and over again.
.dok
They dont ship to the usa.
@Noobixide – adafruit is the USA distributor (it’s on the oomlout and adafruit sites)…
…what are shift registers?
shift registers are normally used for serialparallel conversion.
can be used for serial-serial so act as a sort of delay.
Hi All,
I’d really like to start playing with Arduino’s – If I were to purchase this kit, what would you all recommend as a good programming platform (I have both Windows and Mac OS X notebooks)
My background is x86 Assembler and VB6/VB.NET
Cheers,
Paul
@paul:
There are instructions on how to interface the arduino with about a zillion programming languages here: http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/InterfacingWithSoftware
If you’re a old-school hacker you can use C or C++, alternatively you can use java, python, ruby, perl, processing (language designed for interfacing with microcontrollers), and vb.net and vbscript are mentioned, among many others.
Which language you use depends on which you are comfortable with and which suits your desired usage best, but if you don’t use Processing you are likely to be doing all communication with the board over a serial connection so from a comms point of view the language is largely immaterial.
@pkm
I looked for old-school languages like FORTRAN and Lisp, but didn’t see them. C is newfangled portable assembler for newbies who don’t bother learning how to toggle in their bootloaders.