Arduino

Arduino - the first global microcomputer for education

Arduino was born in Italy in the mind of Massimo Banzi in a bar whose name has obtained the plaque. The main idea of the invention was popularization of electronics in education both among people who already have knowledge of electronics but mainly for those who do not have much experience with science. Thus was conceived the idea of the simple board in open-source environment, which allows the infinity of developments and projects by the community of Arduino. The board is based on Atmel's 8-bit AVR microcontroller and an essential part of its construction is the pinout (i.e. the shape of the extension pins), which makes board extensions to a multitude of shields and modules possible. Shields are pre-programmed modules that facilitate the number of applications including motor control (an essential function in robotics), light module control (LED, OLED) or video recording by camera modules.

Arduino IDE - the programming environment

Arduino IDE is a multiplatform application written in Java language, which forms the basis of all projects and the whole Arduino environment. The environment is designed in this way to be friendly to hobbyists and people who do not deal with creating the software. The IDE contains the code editor with such functions as syntax highlighting or automatic engraving in the code, as well as allowing the program to be compiled and sent to the Arduino surface. There is usually no need for additional editing of make files or programs running from the command line, which makes the program more user-friendly for programming beginners.

Arduino IDE contains the C/C++ library called "Wiring" (derived from the project with the same name), thanks to which basic input/output operations are being made much easier. Programs for Arduino are mainly written in C/C++ language, however users must define only two functions to receive the program ready to go:

setup () - function performed once, at the beginning of the program action, used mainly for configuration loading,

loop () - function activated repeatedly, during the whole period of the program action, i.e. until the power is switched off from the arrangement

With these two functions you can write your first program in Arduino!

Compatible boards

Since the time when the Arduino team's projects are available as copyleft licenses, the programmers have restricted the use of the Arduino name only, leaving the construction in opensource form and the whole project open for community development. However, part of the community decided to develop some plates with the same construction but other names like Freeduino, which forms the project separated from Arduino. In addition, there are a variety of producers that offer clones of the most basic Arduino plates - such as Seeduino and many others. It should be remembered that clones work well with established plates, new products rarely have good clones so their compatibility and quality often suffers.