Somewhere around the second half of the last year, I came across the following video criticising basically why schools should teach programming. In my first semester in college I had CS course and I introduced to matlab and java. But surely I cannot do anything about them right now. Only thing remained is some class and loop names.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmM_xDzy2nU
So, the video really inspired me and I said I have to start somewhere. I looked some online tutorials for C++, .Net et. but they were too hard for a beginner.
Then, I came across the following project in a facebook post:
Violà! This is what I was looking for: Arduino!
Arduino is an italian micro-processor that allows to you to create your electronic devices. If you want, you can just light a LED on it. But you can design robots, sensors, control systems and etc. There is even a set of Arduino working on LHC at CERN for data collecting-processing purposes.. Massimo Banzi who is one of the developpers of Arduino gave a TED Talk last year. You can see wide variety of its applications in his talk.
Well, so what is it and how it works basically?
Arduino is a open-source hardware. It means that all the connections, codes and blueprints are available to public online. And it is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
– Front Side- -Back Side-
Arduino uses programming language (people says it is very similar to C++). You are creating codes on its special program (can be found here) and you can upload the code directly to your Arduino via USB 2.0 port. It has USB port and a DC socket, so you can power your Arduino without connecting to your computer.
After a few days of learning the basics, I purchased an Arduino Uno from robotistan.com (for 59.99 TL including USB cable and DC power adapter). It is about 29.99€ on international stores. So cheap, I can say. I bought some resistors, potentiometers, LEDs, push buttons, jumper cables, LCD screen, speaker and etc. And now I’m ready to play with Arduino. I’m expecting the shipment to arrive today. Let’s see what we can make with it 🙂