Author Topic: What's a good Arduino starter kit?  (Read 18834 times)

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Offline dentakuTopic starter

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What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« on: July 21, 2013, 01:51:07 am »
I've been looking at Arduino starter kits that have a bunch of basic stuff in a box and maybe some tutorials and such.
This one seems like it's got lots of fun stuff included with it for a decent price.
http://www.adafruit.com/products/170

Are there any that you people think is better or maybe at a better price?
The official kit has a 16x2 LCD that looks interesting http://store.qkits.com/moreinfo.cfm/K000007 but the Adafruit one seems like it's got more fun stuff included with it for a better price even without the LCD.

I'll probably end up getting 2 breadboard friendly MIDI jacks at the same time because I might be new at electronics but at least I know about MIDI and synths :)
Besides, I'm just better with software/code than hardware anyway.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2013, 01:52:38 am by dentaku »
 

Offline Stonent

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #1 on: July 21, 2013, 02:13:11 am »
I bought this:  http://www.amazon.com/Starter-Kit-Newsite-Uno-Breadboard/dp/B0051QHPJM/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374373173&sr=8-1&keywords=newsite+arduino+r3 and
I bought a Seeedstudio kit... It had a few capacitors, jumper wires, a small breadboard,  an extremely tiny servo, a tricolor LED, reed switch, some resistor and a potentiometer.

http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/arduino-sidekick-basic-kit-p-775.html

It was useful for the jumper wires and the breadboard, but both of those can be purchased for pretty cheap.

I'd consider buying a bunch of sensors. You can get 2 PIR sensors for about $3 total, ultrasonic distance sensors are pretty cheap as well (both from Aliexpress)

If you want to do some LED matrices, you'd probably want some 74xx595 chips, those turn serial data into parallel so one pin can control several LEDs.

$85 seems a bit high, you can buy all those items separately fairly cheap maybe $20 or $30 (not including the Arduino) total if you don't mind waiting 3 weeks from China. But it's convenient to get them all together.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2013, 02:21:10 am by Stonent »
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Offline Bored@Work

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #2 on: July 21, 2013, 05:06:48 am »
Best Arduino starter kit? Any kind of Arduino and a hammer.
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Offline Abstr7ct

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #3 on: July 21, 2013, 03:58:05 pm »
I would recommend taking a look at Sparkfun's Inventor Kit for Arduino:

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11227

 

Offline Dave

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #4 on: July 21, 2013, 04:42:58 pm »
Best Arduino starter kit? Any kind of Arduino and a hammer.
Don't forget the HammerDuino™ shield. Arduino people wouldn't know how to use the hammer by itself. >:D
<fellbuendel> it's arduino, you're not supposed to know anything about what you're doing
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Offline dentakuTopic starter

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #5 on: July 21, 2013, 05:25:03 pm »
That one does have some nice stuff included in it. The clear red breadboard looks like it would put a strain on your eyes though.
It's almost an identical kit to the Adafruit one and the same price.

I would recommend taking a look at Sparkfun's Inventor Kit for Arduino:

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11227
 

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #6 on: July 21, 2013, 05:28:49 pm »
I wouldn't even know to start so keep well away from the subject, about Pic is where I got to  |O still got a headache.
 

Offline hlavac

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #7 on: July 21, 2013, 08:58:02 pm »
Best Arduino starter kit? Any kind of Arduino and a hammer.

+1. Arduino makes you into a "user", not a "designer". You will have no idea how it works and you will expect everything to be handed to you on a silver plate.
Doing something that does not have a library already done ready to use will seem to be so unsurmountably hard to you compared to what you did so far because of all the learning you have skipped that you will just give up. It makes you into a dream customer of the IP pushers lobby and you will never really own any of your designs...
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Offline c4757p

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #8 on: July 21, 2013, 08:59:34 pm »
Arduino is a starter kit. Then you move on.
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Offline tcbetka

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #9 on: July 21, 2013, 09:14:07 pm »
Yeah...I wouldn't at ALL say it's fair to criticize the Arduino library in that fashion. For one thing, it is intended to be a fairly quick "prototyping" library, but that doesn't mean it isn't usable for other purposes. The other thing is that for anyone involved in large-scale software development projects, it's very naive to think that you WON'T be using some sort of third-party software library in the project. If your employer purchases some type of library, then you'll be using that library. If it costs less to purchase code to do what you need it to, than it does to write it all in-house, guess which way you'll be going much of the time? Bottom line--don't think that the Arduino stuff is bad, just because you didn't write it all. Hey if you want to write every single line from scratch in C or (God forbid) Assembly...go for it. Just don't expect to get paid for all that work, when it might be much faster (and thus ultimately cheaper) to purchase some third-party stuff. The other thing about using the Arduino stuff is that it's pretty simple in most cases, and allows you to express ideas pretty quickly most of the time. Then, if you must go write your own code, at least you've got some concrete ideas to work with.

One other thing--although still admittedly limited (but growing steadily), my experience with the Arduino libraries is that they are getting more robust as time passes. But anyone is free to grab the 8-bit MCU of choice and have at it, if they feel the urge to do so. I started out that way a couple years ago, but quickly came to the realization that there just isn't enough time in the day to write each and every line of code myself...and still get things done on a consistently predictable timetable, in terms of deliverables.

Your mileage may vary of course.

TB
 

Offline Dave

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #10 on: July 21, 2013, 09:15:25 pm »
Arduino is a starter kit. Then you move on.
The sad reality is that most people don't. :-\
<fellbuendel> it's arduino, you're not supposed to know anything about what you're doing
<fellbuendel> if you knew, you wouldn't be using it
 

Offline Phroon

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #11 on: July 22, 2013, 06:16:32 am »
Best Arduino starter kit? Any kind of Arduino and a hammer.

+1. Arduino makes you into a "user", not a "designer". You will have no idea how it works and you will expect everything to be handed to you on a silver plate.
Doing something that does not have a library already done ready to use will seem to be so unsurmountably hard to you compared to what you did so far because of all the learning you have skipped that you will just give up. It makes you into a dream customer of the IP pushers lobby and you will never really own any of your designs...

Hack a Day had a wonderful response to attitudes like this: How the arduino won? This is how we can kill it.  Here's the meat:

Quote
One reason attributed to the popularity of the Arduino is the hostile attitude from “old school” hackers. If someone shows up and excitedly says “look, I made an RGB mood lamp with an Arduino”, we shouldn’t scream in their faces how stupid they are for such a massive overkill. We shouldn’t ignore them either. That will only send them back to the Arduino forums with their tails between their legs to do yet, another copy/paste project. We should pat them on the back and say “Hey, great job! You know I’ll bet we could make a cheap circuit with a 555 that would pull that same effect off quite nicely and it would only cost $1. Here, check out this schematic.”

Embrace them, educate them, and the Arduino will no longer be their only tool.
 

Offline Phroon

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #12 on: July 22, 2013, 06:43:29 am »
So, to answer the original question, the Adafruit and Sparkfun kits are a nice collection of starter parts.

One of those will get you started but once you are looking to move beyond Arduino and into the world of microcontrollers I'd suggest picking up some ATmega target boards (with ZIF socket) and a programmer.  If a ATmega is overkill for your project they have ATtiny target boards that work with the 2313s and also the 25/45/85 series with an additional wire.  Of course you could always make one yourself.  Not everything will be done for you like in the Arduino environment, but you have the potential to learn a lot more about how things really work.

And as far as learning goes there's a lot of AVR resources:

Have fun, ask questions, learn a lot and don't be dissuaded about Arduino.  It is a wonderful stepping stone as long as you use it as that, the first step on your journey through microcontrollers, you'll have a lot of project opportunities open up.
 

Offline dentakuTopic starter

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #13 on: July 22, 2013, 04:39:02 pm »
I know there are people who think you should do everything from scratch by yourself but allot of people start by modifying other people's stuff first.
Since I'm more comfortable with software and code I figured I'd see what Arduinos could do for me.

It's the same with synths. Some people want to be completely analog whether it be full on geeky modular synths or actual keyboards and some people use only virtual instruments.
I like a mixture of both. The new Prophet 12, for example, uses digital sound sources but has analog filters and it's the most impressive instrument in many years.
I like learning how analog synths work but I probably don't want to build my own sequencer when I could use MIDI from my computer to control them instead (unless it's a drum machine in which a standalone hand built hardware sequencer might be a fun project).

Having a deep understanding of everything you're using is great for professionals building "products" but some people just like hacking stuff and building things out of recycled free junk.
 
So, to answer the original question, the Adafruit and Sparkfun kits are a nice collection of starter parts.

One of those will get you started but once you are looking to move beyond Arduino and into the world of microcontrollers I'd suggest picking up some ATmega target boards (with ZIF socket) and a programmer.  If a ATmega is overkill for your project they have ATtiny target boards that work with the 2313s and also the 25/45/85 series with an additional wire.  Of course you could always make one yourself.  Not everything will be done for you like in the Arduino environment, but you have the potential to learn a lot more about how things really work.

And as far as learning goes there's a lot of AVR resources:

Have fun, ask questions, learn a lot and don't be dissuaded about Arduino.  It is a wonderful stepping stone as long as you use it as that, the first step on your journey through microcontrollers, you'll have a lot of project opportunities open up.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2013, 04:59:51 pm by dentaku »
 

Offline tcbetka

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #14 on: July 23, 2013, 12:55:27 pm »
One other point to not regarding Arduino stuff, is that it's all open. So that means that you can easily open the source files for whatever you're working on, and have a look at how things are being done. For example, say you're learning to write to and read from an SD card using SPI. Have a look inside the libraries/SPI directory, and open SPI.cpp. You can see how things are being done, and learn from it. So the information is there--it's up to the person using it to learn from it. There's no reason not to, as long as a person makes the effort to do so.

Also, there is enough criticism of the Arduino code out there that a person can find out what others thing is *wrong* with the Arduino libraries. And that is but another way to learn about programming MCUs through the use of the Arduino code.

TB
 

Offline madires

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #15 on: July 23, 2013, 01:24:59 pm »
+1. Arduino makes you into a "user", not a "designer". You will have no idea how it works and you will expect everything to be handed to you on a silver plate.
Doing something that does not have a library already done ready to use will seem to be so unsurmountably hard to you compared to what you did so far because of all the learning you have skipped that you will just give up. It makes you into a dream customer of the IP pushers lobby and you will never really own any of your designs...

Before someone becomes an expert he/she starts as a user. I did, you did, everyone else did. In another thread about learning electronics there's a great quote about frustrating beginners with equations and math. The same applies here. If you tell a beginner to read the MCU's datasheet and learn assembler first it won't take long to get him frustrated and look for another hobby/career. Having fun is essential for motivation. And with that the beginner will start to look at the internals in more detail and maybe learn about processor architecture and assembler. Otherwise it would be like saying: you've to learn to build and repair a car before you may drive one.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2013, 02:06:31 pm by madires »
 

Offline Radio Tech

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #16 on: July 23, 2013, 01:37:59 pm »

Before someone becomes an expert he/she starts as a user. I did, you did, everyone else did. In another thread about learning electronics there's a great quote about frustrating beginners with equations and math. The same applies here. If you tell a beginner to read the MCU's datasheet and learn assembler first it won't take long to get him frustrated and look for another hobby/career. Having fun is essential for motivation. And with that the beginner will start to look at the internals in more detail and maybe learn about processor architecture and assembler. Otherwise it would be like saying: you've to learn to built and repair a car before you may drive one.

To me, that is very well said.  Everyone started at one time or another.  Like myself, I am just starting in pic programming and have no idea what I am doing.  I asked some question on another forum (that I would not dare to ask here) and I was handed links to the manuals on the pic I was working with.  This was over a month ago.
So after giving up a few times and watching countless youtube vids where folks are just talking about it and not really showing how and reading lots of datasheets, This past saturday I read and programmed my first pic. (16F884). This was via setting the pic on a bread board and connecting what I needed. was crude yes, but it worked.

Offline jancumps

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #17 on: July 23, 2013, 02:00:18 pm »
I asked some question on another forum (that I would not dare to ask here) ...
You don't have to do that. Just ignore (or enjoy) the witty remarks. You'll get it answered here anyway.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #18 on: July 23, 2013, 03:23:41 pm »
Best Arduino starter kit? Any kind of Arduino and a hammer.

the 'Deluxe' version comes with a box of hammers and an instruction booklet : "How to efficiently Widlarize your Arduino"
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Offline tcbetka

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #19 on: July 23, 2013, 03:26:12 pm »
Great post madires. Very well-said indeed. I am just now (hopefully) coming out of that effect, after struggling for the last year or two learning how to program AVR microcontrollers "from scratch." There are many things I still have to scratch my head at--like debugging interrupts and such. For me the Arduino stuff just puts the fun back in it, because it takes relatively little effort to make something work. So I find that I spend more time learning about building stuff than I do learning about "learning" how to program an MCU.

This is a process, and any process takes time. Your mind only learns what it is ready to learn, so if using an Arduino helps improve your learning by making the actual programming part easier...then so much the better. The people who want to dive deeper, will. The people who don't care to do that, will likely move on to something else. If everyone did though, there wouldn't be much work out there for the people who really put a lot of time into becoming great embedded developers...

TB
 

Offline Abstr7ct

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #20 on: July 23, 2013, 04:38:44 pm »
My experience was going straight to working with low-level microcontrollers, which is a PIC16F690 chip and MPLAB assembler, without bothering with platforms like Arduino. In a matter of 4 months, I was able to write a program that acts as a basic arithmetic calculator. With a PIC18 chip, a 16×2 LCD display screen and a keypad, I was able to add, subtract, multiply and divide. The program was over 250 lines and was written using MikroC IDE. However, I never used the built-in functions except a function that communicates with the LCD screen and another function for converting from Float data type to String data type. But I'm not going to lie, I used another previously written program as a reference to write mine, so there was some work of re-engineering; improving what the reference program lacked in. This is because I wasn't used to write a program with all these lines, functions and interconnections.

Anyway, what I want to deliver in my post, is that you can start hard from the point of zero, that's going straight to the low levels. With an excellent book and rich references on the internet, just in a matter of weeks you would be able to write small programs for a low-level microcontroller and you would become familiar with reading the datasheet to extract what you need out of it. And of course, with time you would be become more and more experienced and it only takes a few months to start working on 'interesting' projects other than blinking an LED or driving a simple DC motor. From there, when you go to high-level platforms like Arduino, it would look silly in terms of its difficulty as you've become knowledgeable of how these microcontroller chips work from inside and how things like interrupts, SPI and I2C communications work from inside and on the code level. The situation would be different if you started directly from a high level point down to a low level point.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2013, 04:42:08 pm by Abstr7ct »
 

Offline TheWelly888

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #21 on: August 26, 2013, 03:20:28 pm »
I have just ordered one of these kits for only 46 GBP from this lot: http://www.rapidonline.com/Electronic-Components/Make-Getting-Started-With-Arduino-Kit-73-4628
You can do anything with the right attitude and a hammer.
 

Offline MatCat

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #22 on: August 26, 2013, 04:45:22 pm »
I certainly feel that the Arduino got too heavy an attack here, who says one has to start from the lowest point in EVERYTHING?   Coming from the software world it would be impossible to think that you are going to program everything from scratch from the ground up, I.E. let's say you write a piece of business software for Windows, hell because you are on Windows that is already forcing you to use Microsoft code already!   As things inherently become more complex the building blocks become more encapsulated, I.E. 20 years ago if you where going to write a game for the computer you would be doing it yourself from scratch, today you pick the engine you want to use as a base, use your favourite 3D modelling program, then fire up your skills on some scripting language like LUA to make the magic, very little real code is ever written, often what is written is the menu and UI structure on top of the 3D engine.

It was the Arduino that got me into electronics because as a programmer by profession the idea of something I could program is what appealed to me, the basic concepts of electronics followed as I experimented.   Sure you can work an RGB LED with a 555, but I see no point in that when I can use a simple AVR to do it and program it however I like (Though I still recommend one learns how a 555 works anyway).

One thing I DONT like about a lot of the AVR community is how they like to just buy brand new Arduinos and use them permanently in a project, a 328p cost about $1.50 to $2 individually and only need a minimal amount of parts to get them running.

Now to the OP:  My recommendation is get an Arduino UNO, then to go and get some actual AVR chips, my recommendation are the ATTINY85, ATTINY2313, ATMEGA328P, ATMEGA1284P, some 16MHz crystals to run those chips, 22pf caps for the crystals, , along with that get yourself a resistor kit, electrolytic cap kit, ceramic cap kit, some random but useful things like 555 chips, 595 and 165 shift registers, some diodes, transistors, push buttons, and really you will have everything you need to do just about anything.  Quite literally how I started!  I went to Radio Shack and bought a resistor kit with 500 resistors, similar cap kits, transistor kits, etc and just started learning them all, I read through about 3 separate electronics books (2 of them had nothing to do with MCU's at all) and did all of it sequentially through the book to learn all of the basic concepts and just branched off from there.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2013, 04:51:17 pm by MatCat »
 

Offline Dave

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #23 on: August 26, 2013, 05:17:59 pm »
One thing I DONT like about a lot of the AVR community is how they like to just buy brand new Arduinos and use them permanently in a project, a 328p cost about $1.50 to $2 individually and only need a minimal amount of parts to get them running.
The 'tArduino community buys new dev boards over and over. AVR communuty knows how to program and use the chips the way they were intended. |O
<fellbuendel> it's arduino, you're not supposed to know anything about what you're doing
<fellbuendel> if you knew, you wouldn't be using it
 

Offline jancumps

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Re: What's a good Arduino starter kit?
« Reply #24 on: August 26, 2013, 05:20:55 pm »
Don't bang your head. Both are doing electronics.  :-+
 


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