Getting Started With Arduino

Getting Started With Arduino

The Arduino is a small, inexpensive computer that can be programmed
to control endless creations limited only by your imagination. As you’ll
soon see, the Arduino can be used to make a whole host of projects,
like a ghost detector, joystick-controlled laser, electronic die, laser
trip wire alarm, motion sensor alarm, keypad entry system, and many
others. All of these projects are easy to build and have one thing in
common—they use the power of the Arduino.
In the early 1980s, I picked up a great Penguin paperback
titled something like Gadgets and Gizmos, hidden away in a local
bookstore. The projects were simple ones like making a working
lighthouse using flashlight bulbs and building a revolving display table
using an old clock. The ideas in that book sparked my imagination,
and I’ve been creating ever since.
My curiosity led me to take apart various electrical items to
experiment with and fnd out how they worked. I usually struggled to
put them back together but amassed a good selection of components to tinker with. (This is a great way of gathering lots of parts, by
the way.)
I remember wiring together a string of small flashlight bulbs to
make floodlights for my Subbuteo table-top soccer game and creating a loudspeaker system to blast out music at the halftime break
in a game. I even managed to extract some LEDs from a Star Wars
toy, only to burn them out because I didn’t understand what a resistor was at the time. I used small motors, buzzers, and solar cells to
create burglar alarms and super whizzy cars, and I burned out a few
motors too!
At roughly the same time (1983), Sinclair Research in the United
Kingdom launched the ZX Spectrum 48k microcomputer, introducing home computing to the UK mass market. (The United States had
its Commodore 64.) While intended as a serious computer, the ZX
Spectrum inadvertently lent itself more to gaming due to its inclusion
of the simple programming language BASIC. As a result, software
houses sprouted in bedrooms across the country as people rushed
to build games for the ZX.

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