Introduction to Arduino

What is Arduino?

        Arduino is a tool for making computers that can sense and control more of the physical world than your desktop computer.

        Arduino is an open source physical computing platform based on a simple input/output (I/O) board and a development environment that implements the Processing language. Arduino can be used to develop standalone interactive objects or can be connected to software on your  computer (such as Flash, Processing, or Max/MSP).

         The boards can be assembled by hand or purchased preassembled; the open-source IDE can be downloaded for free on www.arduino.cc

How differs from others?

• Multiplatform Environment so it can run on Windows, Linux, Macintosh.
• Easy to use Development environment
• Programmable via USB port, not Serial port
• Easy-to-use for beginners, yet flexible enough for advanced users to take advantage
• Open source and extensible software- The Arduino software is published as open source tools, available for extension by experienced programmers. 
• Open source and extensible hardware - The Arduino is based on Atmel's ATMEGA8 and ATMEGA168 microcontrollers.

Arduino Board

Arduino Development Environment

       The Arduino development environment contains a text editor for writing code, a message area, a text console, a toolbar with buttons for common functions, and a series of menus. It connects to the Arduino hardware to upload programs and communicate with them.

        Software written using Arduino are called sketches. These sketches are written in the text editor. Sketches are saved with the file extension .ino.

reference: arduino.cc , Getting Started with Arduino by Massimo Banzi 

    You can download eBook  Getting Started with Arduino by Massimo Banzi  from Here

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