Chapter 3: Setting Up Our Arduino Board
Now it is time for us to go through and take a look at some of the steps that we need to use in order to actually work with this controller, and when the board is all set up and ready to go, we are able to learn some of the steps that are necessary to get to work.
The first step to all of this, though, is to choose which board, out of the many choices that we would like to work with so let’s get started there.
How to Pick Out the Arduino Board to Use
The very first step that we need to use here is to take a look at our choices of boards and then choose which one will work for our projects.
When we are looking through some of the choices that are out there for the boards, there are a few factors that we should consider ahead of time.
One of the factors that are the most important here is how much power we would like this board to have dependent on the applications we want to run.
Of course, if you are just getting started and want to learn a bit of programming without knowing the exact type of project that we want to do, and this means that you may have no idea of the power or the flash memory that you are going to use.
But you will be able to do a little searching and find that there is a big difference between making a simple nightlight and a few of the other simple projects all the way to doing some of the bigger projects like creating our own robotic hand.
Knowing which way you are hoping to go with all of this is going to be important to make sure that you have the power and the memory that you want to work with.
If you think through some of the different parts that you want to accomplish with this ahead of time, you will find that it is a lot easier to figure out which controller options are going to be the best for your needs before you make a purchase.
You have to first look at the amount of power that you would like to have with that board.
When that is determined, it is time to figure out how many of the analog and digital pins you would like to have on the board to get things set up for your projects.
Just like with the other options, you don’t necessarily have to be spot on with this, but knowing whether your projects need just a few pins or a lot of them is going to make a big difference in the board that you decide to use in the first place.
If you would like to just use this board to learn a few of the basics of coding and you plan to stick with the simple projects, then you may find that having fewer of these pins is going to be just fine.
But, if you plan to grow into the board, or you want to jump right in and take on a lot of the more complicated parts along the way, then you need to make sure that you go with a board that has a lot more pins to get it all done.
This is going to require you to have a few more ideas of what your goals are in order to get it done.
The next thing on the list that we need to spend some time on is whether we would like to work with one of these controllers that are wearable or not.
This is going to be a personal decision based on what you are doing with the project, but it is a choice you can make when you pick out your devices, so it is important to consider as well.
This is something that we talked about earlier in this guidebook, but we need to consider ahead of time whether we would like to see the Arduino controller connect back to the internet or not.
If you would like to have that ability to connect to the internet, then you will need to look for that feature when choosing aboard.
Keep in mind that while a lot of these controllers come with this capability, this doesn’t always ring true, so think it through ahead of time too.
Picking out the board that you would like to use is not always as easy as it seems.
It takes a lot of time, and it can be a challenge because there are a lot of choices for you to pick from.
Knowing how many pins you want, the power that should be behind the device and more, are all going to be important based on what you are looking for in the process.