Arduino Starter Kit
I hope that you all had a great Christmas, I sure did, my favourite present was the official (Italian supplied) Arduino Starter Kit. I have been reading about this particular kit not being produced - I can confirm that RS Components supply it as this was where my kit was purchased from.
Packaging
The Arduino Starter Kit comes in a lovely matt cardboard box very well decorated with sketches that basically sums up all the components you get as part of this kit. The cover shows that you will get the Uno board, plus others such as motors, displays and a whole host of electronic components that we will see more about later.
Opening the box reveals the project book on top. The inside of the lid has a simple message saying :
The original arduino starter kit features 15 simple projects that show you how to use arduino to turn an idea into reality more importantly, it provides the basic knowledge and tools that can bring out your inner genius and fuel your creativity forever - what's your invention going to be?
The final question, highlighted in bold is the important part for me, this kit will give you a wide selection of basic tools and components that you need to start exploiting your arduino micro controller, now it is down to you to put your idea into practise!
The book itself is a guide to learning arduino and basic electronics, I'll discuss this further. The book lays atop a divider under which all the electronic components are underneath.
As part of the starter kit you get the following major "units" of stuff:
- Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)
- USB Cable
- DC Motor and a Servo Motor
- Breadboard with Jumper wires
- (a wide selection of) electronic components
- an Arduino Uno board
Before we unbox each of these components, underneath the boxes that hold these parts, there are some cardboard cuts outs that are used for the projects in the book (later) as well as a wooden board that has been laser cut.
Arduino Uno microcontroller board
The Uno is the heart of your system. The Uno is constructed based on an ATMega328 processor (that's the large black bit middle-bottom right.
There are 14 dual-purpose (input or output) digital pins. Of which 6 of these can be configured to use Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) - basically this is a way of switching the output between 0 and 1 that means the output device "sees" an average of something other than 0 or 1, say 0.6.
Finally there are 6 analogue inputs which you could use for say a temperature sensor.
Breadboard and Jumper Wires
The breadboard is using for prototyping electronic circuits and can be seen in the image below. The pins from components such as Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) just slot into the holes. You can then add wires from batteries or even the arduino Uno board to provide power and read signals.
You get four different lengths of wire. The wires have had the ends pre-bent so that you can slot them into the breadboard and the wires will lay flat. At this point I've got reservations about the robustness of these wires, concerns which may be proved / aleviated in a more long term assessment.
Mounting Board
The wooden board is a useful mounting for your Uno board since it is so small. The board has been laser cut to have all the shapes you need, these include small legs that act as a riser for the board. The rest are items you will need in the projects.
A little note - the screws (and nuts) for mounting your Arduino to this board are hidden in the Electronic Components box. Once you've got the breadboard and the Arduino mounted, you now have them closely mounted and mounted securely together, so you needn't worry about knocking either and pulling all your wires out.
USB Cable
Yes its a cable, nothing exciting really? Not quite. I am impressed with this cable (I'm guessing that says a lot about me!). If you think about whenever you've got a USB cable with your new mobile phone, its usually a scrawny short one with a flimsy connector. Well not so with this one, the cable is nice and chunky and is about 1.5m long which makes it really nice for attaching into those USB ports on the back of your PC, running up behind the desk and onto your workstation with plenty of length to manoeuvre it into a position to suit you to work with.
Electronic Components
When you open up the Electronic Components box, here is a list of all the parts that you get:
- Battery Snap
- Capacitors (3 types)
- Diode
- Gels (colour filters)
- H-bridge
- LEDs (blue, red, green, yellow and RGB)
- Optocoupler
- Piezo
- Photo resistor (LDR)
- Potentiometer (3 off)
- Push button (4 off)
- [lots of] Resistors
- Thermistor (4 off)
- Tilt sensor (1 off)
- Transistor (3 off)
I found a picture from RS Components to show everything that you get (not just the electronic components) as you can see, you do get a lot!
Liquid Crystal Display
Getting this was a surprise, I was convinced that I wouldn't get this and that you could only get this as a shield or some other accessory. The pins for the display come inserted into some foam which is brilliant for keeping them protected and not getting bent, or worse broken, during transport.
DC Motor and Servo Motor
In the DC Motor box, you can find the DC Motor and Servo Motor. Also included are some attachments to go on the rotor (the bit that will move) to give you slightly different movement effects in a small plastic bag.
I must admit, I really like the pins provided on the wires for the Motor (bottom left), the chunky plastic where the wire meets the pin is great to grip with and either pull from or push the pin into the breadboard.
Project Book
The final beauty of this pack is the Project Book. It is a beautifully well presented and very well made book that takes you step-by-step through each project and explains thoroughly, without any patronisation, everything you need to know and do.
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