Skip to content

What we’re about

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use

hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone

interested in creating interactive objects or environments. Arduino is an imbedded

microcontroller best used for a dedicated purpose with an easy interface to the physical

world. One Million Arduino units sold world-wide in 7 years.

The Arduino environment www.arduino.cc was created to allow artists and designers, people without

advanced electronics knowledge, to build affordable things that were previously too complicated and

expensive for anyone outside of the professional electrical engineering domain. Arduino is based on

the inexpensive but powerful ATMEL family of embedded controller chips.

Arduino is a complete development environment which means it has its own Integrated Development

Environment (IDE), text editor, compiler, development board with many input/output channels to

connect to a huge number of external sensors and physical world output devices. The Arduino IDE is

free to download from www.arduino.cc.

Since 2006, there has been over a million sales of Arduino boards world-wide and an estimated $100

million in sales of devices, accessories and components. Arduino has become the flagship economic

engine that has built the Maker Movement. Arduino is used in many educational programs around the

world, particularly by designers and artists who want to easily create prototypes but do not need a

deep understanding of the technical details behind their creations. Because it is designed to be used

by nontechnical people, the software includes plenty of example code to demonstrate how to use the

Arduino board’s various facilities.

Though it is easy to use, Arduino’s underlying hardware works at the same level of sophistication that

engineers employ to build embedded devices. People already working with microcontrollers are also

attracted to Arduino because of its agile development capabilities and its facility for quick

implementation of ideas. Arduino is best known for its hardware, but you also need software to

program the hardware. Both the hardware and the software are called “Arduino”. The combination

enables you to create projects that sense and control the physical world. The software is free, opensource,

and cross-platform (works on Windows , Mac OSX and Linux). The boards are inexpensive to

buy, or you can build your own (the hardware designs are also open-source).

Arduino has become popular because it is an exceptional platform for teaching the basics of

programing and basic electronics because it allows the student to see immediate results of their work.

Arduino is a platform that provides insight into technology because it is made up of strong components

of programming and basic electronics There are many features of the Arduino platform that facilitate

'rapid prototyping'. We have seen that rapid prototyping generates creativity in developing new

devices.

Arduino is designed to easily interface with the physical world unlike your friendly general purpose

home computer which interface with a mouse and a keyboard to humans and hooks up the the

internet very well but it is rather difficult and expensive to connect to your cellphone, garage door or

control your air conditioning system and a multitude of input/output devices that comprise the real

world of 'physical computing'.

How to get started with Arduino.

  1. You can buy an Arduino Starter Kit from many sources online and locally at Radio Shack.

Starter kit prices range for $30 to $100. All kits have the basics; an Arduino Uno board, a USB

cable and a solderless breadboard with some easy-to-connect wires for hooking up basic

circuits. The prices vary due to the additional accessories provided in the kit. Some of the

better known and trusted online sources for Arduino Starter Kits are: Sparkfun

http://www . sparkfun .com /, Adafruit http://www.adafruit.com/, Makershed

http://www.makershed.com and the Arduino web site www.arduino.cc

  1. All of the three major online retailers listed above have figured out that providing well-written

tutorials for customers is an excellent way to market and promote sales of Arduino stuff. These

three major retailers compete to have the best tutorials and as a result there is a huge amount

of free training information on their websites.

  1. Two of the best independent Arduino tutorial/project sites sites are: Tronixstuff.com

http://tronixstuff.com/2010/04/04/getting-started-with-arduino-chapter-zero/ and Instructables

http://www.instructables.com/

  1. There are many books on the subject of getting starting with Arduino that can be found at

major book stores or Amazon.com. Four of the best are: Getting Started with Arduino by

Massimo Banzi, http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920021414.do, Programming Arduino by

Simon Monk,http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Arduino-Getting-Started-

Sketches/dp/0071784225, Arduino by Jeremy Blum, http://www.amazon.com/Exploring-

Arduino-Techniques-Engineering-Wizardry/dp/1118549368.

  1. YouTube has many video tutorials and project on the subject of arduino. One of the best series

of Arduino tutorials is by Jeremy Blum, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCxzA9_kg6s.You

can search 'Arduino' on YouTube to find many more with varying degrees of quality.

  1. Checkout the Arduino website www.arduino.cc which is loaded with tons of information for

beginners to get started with Arduino.

7 Join the Bend Arduino Group https://www.meetup.com/Bend-Arduino-Group/

The Bend Arduino Group has been operating for several months and we

have 60 members We meet every other Wednesday evening and there is

no charge for the events. Several of our most active members are father

and teenage son teams. We provide a basic course for beginners that

have no previous technical experience and an advanced users group

working on design projects of their own. We frequently have experts come

in and speak on interesting Arduino-related subjects. Many of our

members are experienced programmers who are gaining knowledge in

hardware technology. Some are people with an interest in just

understanding how all this technology around us works and many want to

design innovative devices of their creation.

David Robson

Organizer

Bend Arduino Group