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006 L2-Notes-V2

The document provides an overview of the Arduino ecosystem, detailing its components such as the Arduino board, IDE, core software library, third-party libraries, shields, and individual components. It emphasizes the importance of using official Arduino boards for compatibility and quality. The lecture concludes with a brief mention of the upcoming topics related to Arduino tools and prototyping.

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20 views4 pages

006 L2-Notes-V2

The document provides an overview of the Arduino ecosystem, detailing its components such as the Arduino board, IDE, core software library, third-party libraries, shields, and individual components. It emphasizes the importance of using official Arduino boards for compatibility and quality. The lecture concludes with a brief mention of the upcoming topics related to Arduino tools and prototyping.

Uploaded by

sharlotrajsli
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Peter Dalmaris Lecture 2 Arduino Step by Step

Section 1 Lecture 2
The Arduino ecosystem
Before setting up the "hello world" demo app of the electronics world (the blinking LED),
let's have a really quick look at the Arduino ecosystem. The members of this ecosystem are
the bits and pieces that come together when you build an Arduino project.

The Arduino ecosystem is made up of these parts:

1. The Arduino board

2. The Arduino IDE

3. The Arduino core software library ("Arduino language")

4. Third party software libraries

5. Shields

6. Components

The Arduino board


In the beginning, way back in 2005, there was only one board. Rumour has it that it was
called the "Arduino" in honour of the place where the idea for an open-source hardware
prototyping platform was conceived. Today there are numerous boards, with a wide range
of capabilities. Processing, input/output, power consumption, size, and price are various
metrics in which modern Arduino boards differ from each other.

The very popular Arduino Uno Rev 3

Arduino-official boards are made by companies that work in collaboration with the Arduino
team to ensure compatibility. They are the only ones licensed to use the name "Arduino". In
return, makers of official Arduino boards pay a fee to the Arduino project. There are also

The Arduino 1
Peter Dalmaris Lecture 2 Arduino Step by Step

The very small Arduino Micro

many clones, derivatives and counterfeit boards that while using the open-sourced Arduino
software and schematics do not contribute to the project financially. They also are not
providing any guarantee of compatibility and quality. I recommend you only purchase an
official Arduino board for both peace of mind and for the nice feeling of contribution to the
project.

The Arduino IDE


The Arduino IDE, or Integrated Development Environment, is the tool you use to create an
Arduino program and upload it to your board. An Arduino program is called a sketch, a
reminder that what you are actually doing is prototyping, which in turn means that anything
you do is subject to trial, testing, and change.

Here is an example of the Arduino IDE.

The Arduino 2
Peter Dalmaris Lecture 2 Arduino Step by Step

The Arduino IDE can be downloaded from the Arduino website and it works on Mac, Linux
and Windows computers. Its only requirement is the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).
Simply download the IDE installer for your computer, and run it. The installer will let you
know if you need to download the JRE. Get it from http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software.

With the IDE installed, you will be able to type, upload to the board, and debug (ie. fix) your
sketches. You also use the IDE to communicate both ways with the board: to upload your
sketches to the Arduino, and to receive messages from the Arduino.

The Arduino language


When you download the Arduino IDE, you also get the Arduino core library. This library is a
collection of functions or methods that allow you to control the various aspects of your
board's functionality. For example, if you want to read an analogue value from pin 1, you
call the relevant method like this:

analogRead(1);

Awesomely simple! If you want to turn an LED light on, that requires "writing" a digital value
1 to a digital pin. Connect the LED through a resistor to digital pin 13 and use this method:

digitalWrite(13, HIGH);

Apart from methods like these, meant to interact with the environment, the Arduino core
library gives you many others. There are control structures, arithmetic operators,
mathematics functions and many others. All of them are listed and documented in the
references page of the Arduino project's web site.

I will be explaining the use of many of these methods as we use them throughout this
course.

Third party software libraries


Lot's of people have contributed to the Arduino ecosystem by writing their own libraries
and making them available to others. These third-party libraries often address gaps in
functionality that the Core library perhaps does not offer, or it does not offer well. In other
cases, these libraries offer alternative ways of doing things.

For example, this library allows you to add infra-red remote control capability to your
project. This one implements a web server that can run on your board, which is very useful
for remote sensing or remote control applications.

Shields
Very often, certain hardware components are used so widely that eventually a company
assembles them together on a printed circuit board so that it is easy to plug into an Arduino
board without any wires. These extension boards are known as "shields".

The Arduino 3
Peter Dalmaris Lecture 2 Arduino Step by Step

The Ethernet shield is very common. It makes it very easy to add Ethernet and Internet
communications to your project. You could just buy the WizNet controller, connector and
other parts and create your own Ethernet adaptor, but it would be silly to do that.
Remember that our mission is to build prototypes so that we can implement our ideas, not
to fiddle around with problems already solved well by others!

Another popular shield is the Arduino Motor Shield through which you can control all sorts
of motors, very useful if you want to build a robot, a racing car, or a remote control lawn
mower.

In section 4 we will be playing with the Ethernet shield.

Components
Finally, there are the individual components. These are typically small devices that you plug
into your board by using jumper cables and breadboards.

For example, if you want to take temperature and humidity readings, you could use the
DHT11 sensor.

If you need to measure distance, then you could use an ultrasonic distance sensor.

In sections 2 and 3 of this course we will be experimenting with many useful components.

Conclusion
Ok, that concludes a brief dive into the Arduino ecosystem. Please take a few minutes to
answer a few quiz questions before continuing with Lecture 3 where we examine the
Arduino tools and the prototyping process.

The Arduino 4

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