What is Arduino? | How it works ?| Learn all about Aurdino- Beginner's guide

What is Arduino? - Full guide for beginners

What is Arduino? | How to use Arduino| Types of Arduino boards | Microcontroller| Hardware and software in Arduino.

You may not be related to electronic world but you must have heard about the word Ardiuno a few times . Here we will tell you all about Arduino .

Today we will cover the following heads on Arduino.

• What is Arduino?
• Types of Arduino boards 
• Hardware of Arduino
• Program and software installation in Arduino
• Real Arduino and clone Arduino
• Arduino Shields
• Projects on Arduino

What is Arduino?

Arduino is a microcontroller based open source electronic prototyping board which can be programmed with an easy to use Arduino IDE

The UNO is one of the most popular boards in the Arduino family and a great choice for beginners.

Types of Arduino boards

There are many types of Arduino boards there are more than 200 varieties of Arduino boards some of them are :

1. Arduino UNO 

2. Arduino Mega 

3. Arduino Nano

4. Arduino pro mini 

5. Arduino ATiny85

6. Arduino Leonardo

The major difference between them is the number of  output /input analog pins ,some have micro USB port and some with USB and some needs external power supply and some don't. 

But, as the UNO board is mostly manufactured and widely used by the beginners and UNO is able to do almost all the projects that other boards do  so we will discuss this UNO here only .

Hardware of Arduino

1. Microcontroller

Microcontroller is main part of an Arduino. It is simple normal IC and acts as brain for out circuit. We can train and train our microcontroller and after this it can take decisions related to our work.

You may also heard of microprocessor they are the processor in our laptops , smartphones and many more they are the IC circuit which follows high computing operations and we need to attach the RAM , ROM separately to run the programs .

Microcontroller is somewhat same as the above but it is used where high programing and functions are not required and RAM and ROM is pre-installed in it .

We can understand more easily with an example of washing machine,RC Cars , Television they do not need high programing so microcontroller is used here .

2. USB Connector

This is a printer USB port used to load program from the Arduino IDE into the Arduino board (we will discuss Ardiuno IDE after a while ).This board can also be powered through this port .

3. Power Port 

The Arduino board can be powered through a AC to DC adapter or a battery. The Arduino UNO board operates at a voltage of 5 volts , but it can withstand a maximum voltage of 20 volts .

If the board is supplied with a higher voltage, there is a voltage regulator (it sits between the power port and USB connector) that protects the board from burning out .

4.  Analog Input pins 

The Arduino UNO board has 6 analog pins , labelled"Analog 0 to 5". These pins can read the signal from an analog sensor such as a temperature sensor and convert it into a digital value for system understanding.

These pins just measure voltage and not the current because they have very high internal resistance. Hence , only a small amount of current flows through these pins . Although, these pins are labelled pins are labelled Analog input by default, these pins can also be used for digital input or output.

5. Digital pins 

Digital pins are labelled with "Digital 0 to 13" . These pins can be used as either input or output pins. When used as output, these pins act as a power supply source for the components connected to it and when used as input pins , they read the signals from the component connected to them .

6 . Reset switch

When the switched is clicked, it sends a logical pulse to the reset pin of the Microcontroller, and now runs the program again from the start. This can be very useful if your code does not  repeat, and you want to test it multiple times .

7. TX RX Indicator

TX stands for transmit, and RX for receive. These are indicator LEDs which blink whenever the UNO board is transmitting or receiving data.

Program and software installation in Arduino

Here i am not going to teach you how to program with the Arduino language but here i am going to tell how to install Arduino IDE in you PC, with this software you will be able to install the various program on your Arduino board through your PC .

Step 1 : Go on the website https://www.arduino.cc

Step 2 : Go on the options on the Home page of Arduino.cc

Step 3 : Go to option software

Step 4: Then click on the downloads

Step 5 : Select the operating system you are having 

Step 6 : And then extract the zip file and install on your PC. Here in the software you will get pre codded programs for many operations or you can program with Arduino language too which is easy to learn .Then go on option Tools-> Port to install the program to your Arduino board 

Real Arduino and Clone Arduino

There is not much difference between clone and real Arduino. The clones prepared, are just changing the minor details which even does not effect the operation. Clones are used alot because they are cheaper. Arduino is basically a design of a board on which a microcontroller is mounted. Now the microcontroller belongs to a different company. The benefits of having original/real Arduino is warranty, support, better quality, packaging etc . So as a beginner you can go with the clone.

Arduino Shields

An Arduino shield is a type of development board add on circuit board often a breakout board often allow Arduino microcontroller to access sensors , or display output such as LCD screen or other type of controller.

Projects on Arduino

There are many projects you can make with the Arduino 

1. Finger print scanner for door lock 

2. 3-D printing 

3. RC Motors and cars 

4. Robots and robotic hands 

5. Led light pattern controller

6. Water tank monitoring system

And many more  , you can  of get thousands of tutorials on YouTube for Arduino projects 

I hope you may learnt a lot about Arduino with this and you need not to be experienced with coding if you want to do Arduino projects .

That's is it for now 

This is Dhruv signing off :)

Any questions or wrong information??

Do let us know on dhruvu455@gmail.com

Team Technical Ponder