Tested In-Depth: Getting Started with Arduino

Will and Norm sit down to chat about Arduino microcontrollers and give an overview about how they work, what you can do with them, and how the varying models differ from each other. No scary programming involved!

[dhruvkp]

If only they taught Arduino in grade school...the world would be such a cooler place.

[Skwisgar]

Arduino Mega is an 8bit 16MHz Atmel, not 32 bit 32MHz ARM.

[Bozemoto]

"If-loop", oh dear...
Personally the hardware has been the thing that's scared me off. I am a programmer so programming not so much. I've been browsing around for something simple to get started with robotics with a higher focus on software. Getting really pumped, next paycheck I'll try and get something cheap to play with.

Thanks for the great material

[tested]

I understand that. I said I had work to do to get it brighter. Even at 12V, it wasn't that bright though.

[gunnarMyTube]

These guys have quite some cozy shop set up there. They do a great job here describing the controller board phenomena and crams a heck of an amount of verbal info into the 30 minutes. Well done !

[WhitentonMike]

Minor corrections: FWIW The clock display was wired upside down. The decimal point should be on the bottom.

The clock display is a variant of a seven segment display, A matrix display is a 2 dimensional array/grid of individual LEDs.

[Barnacules]

These boards power both my 3D printers.

[therespectedlex]

Apart from the last bit about the dog, very helpful and encouraging. Thank you

[Guten]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that decorates my office with Lego Star Wars sets! Such a relief

[Keduce]

For a first year electrical engineering project my group built a fully functioning elevator prototype. With programming knowledge and a proper tutorial in a matter of minutes you could get an led to work and perhaps a small dc motor or buzzer.

[daveythacher]

The Arduino Mega is 8-bit AVR ATmega1280 by Atmel running at 16MHz. Did you even go to the Arduino website? Most Arduinos are not ARMs. The newer ones are, some of them. They are mostly 8-bit AVR. I am only aware of one x86 Arduino, Intel Galileo. Because it has a lot of pins does not make it 32-bit or an ARM. An 8-bit microcontroller can be made to have 2048 pins. Using 256 (2^8) bytes (8 bits). ARMs are not the only microcontrollers out there. For most tasks they are overkill and cost more. Also what makes an Arduino an Arduino is not the hardware. It is a bootloader and software/toolchain. Arduino support can be made for almost any microcontroller. You just have to write software support for the hardware configuration. (Not as easy as it sounds.) Pinguino is an example of this. Which supports some of Microchip's 8-bit and 32-bit PICs.

[holdengreene]

Should have given Blum a shout out. His arduino series brings kings to their knees.

[TheAtomicOlive]

This looks like a great way to spend my summer, thanks for introducing me to this guys.

[FizzicksDude]

I love arduino and what it has to offer. The only correction I can see that no one else has mentioned is the fact that the "Due" is one of the newest released boards out on the market and the "Leonardo", "Mega", and "Uno" are older. Small detail but I thought you might like to know. Keep up the good work gentlemen!

[NathanielJohns]

Great video guys! I can confirm what others have been say about the microcontrollers being AVR. Also, Vaes Joren said earlier the the uno uses ATtiny. This is incorrect. The uno uses an AVR based ATmega328 and the mega uses an AVR based ATmega2560.
Very good stuff in the video, keep up the awesome work!

[itsame]

Really enjoyed your video even as a casual viewer with just a passing interest in arduino kits and programming. You covered a lot of ground and I got a real feel for what is involved.
Thanks

[ElectronicsIsFun]

On the Arduino boards, the analog pins are only inputs and the digital pins are input and output. The Due also has (2) DAC outputs that can generate analog signals in addition to the analog input pins and the digital I/O pins. Using external components, the PWM pins can also generate analog signals.

[DanielDJCRO]

1:58 AFAIK it's 8-bit, not 32-bit. And it's 16MHz, not 32.

[DelireWeb]

...My take on "Introduction to the introduction of programming" :D

At 28:27, simply put: "structured programming language". Markup "languages" are not actually "languages" as per computer science paradigms, they are "markups" : they're like the highlighter you'd use over some text, while the text itself is the result of a structured thought process (markups don't define a _Regular grammar_). A cooking recipe can be compared to a structured program, having its own vocabulary structured with precise and ordered instructions in sequence, even in some cases "at the same time", or that must be repeated xx number of times (like shake the mixture for 20 seconds every 1 minute during 5 minutes), or that depend on intermediate results of which you don't know the outcome in advance because you're trying a new ingredient (thus offering different sequences of instructions depending of that outcome, like _if_ it tastes too salty _then_ add water... Or like _if_ it's boiling _then_ turn off the heat, _else_ _repeat_ the _"shake" procedure_ every one minute... Etc.).

One can understand why programming is an Art by itself : there are many ways to do something, like there are many ways to cook an egg. Which one is "better" given a distinct context depends of the cook (of the computer analyst-programmer), same goes for Writers : there are many ways to tell a story, it all depends of the story-teller/Writer to make it a good one or a bad one if not a weird one.

HTML markups can appear dynamically given something you do on a Web page, in which case they are governed by some structured programming _language_ like JavaScript, C, Python, PHP, etc., which interprets the user input so as to generate the correct HTML markups on the Web page. For the sake of comparison: a markup would be the light on a led, or some switch on a circuitry bread; while the "intelligence" behind the led and the switch, capturing signals to interpret and then sending back other signals accordingly and thus controlling Arduino's controller, for lighting the led or not, is all done via some programming language (like a cooking recipe written in English's _Regular Grammar_ using specific cooking vocabulary).

[danielwgk]

Going to watch all of this. I've owned my Arduino kit for way too long to have not done anything with it.