If you've been wanting to get started with an Arduino microcontroller board, it can be nauseating to navigate through the hundreds (if not thousands) of projects in order to figure out how to get your feet wet.
When it was released in 2005, the Arduino platform was one of the most popular and inexpensive ways for makers, students and professionals to create low-power devices that are capable of sensing and interacting with their environments.
Today, Arduino hobbyists have been creating everything from 'Back to the Future'-style power lacing shoes to tree-climbing robots and even social media-responsive power outlets.
But before you begin on your adventure with an Arduino, it helps to have a little bit of background of what the actual board itself is.
The Arduino single-board microcontroller consists of an open-source hardware board designed around and 8-bit Atmel AVR microcontroller, or a 32-bit Atmel ARM. The current models feature a USB interface, 6 analog input pins, and 14 digital I/O pins which allows a user to attach a variety of extension boards.
You've probably heard of similar development boards at one point or another. The most common and mainstream other development board is the Raspberry Pi. Although similar, the two are vastly different when it comes to specifications. While the Arduino offers a powerful starting point for digital making products, its level of functionality against a Raspberry Pi would be like comparing a calculator to a laptop.
The sub-$30 Arduino is a low-power microcontroller that while still powerful, is limited by what it can run. In contrast, the sub-$40 Raspberry Pi is more powerful and is capable of running full-blown computer operating systems such as Linux and Android.
So, why not just use a Raspberry Pi for all of your digital making projects you might be asking?
It all comes down to this: if all you need to do was type a quick calculation, would you need to power up a laptop to input a math equation or could you just use a quick and responsive calculator? You would probably pick the calculator.
Now that you understand the Arduino board a little better and how it compares to similar hobbyist development boards, here are ten fun project ideas to get you started and up and running in a weekend:
Ten Project Ideas for Arduino
1) A remote controlled lawn mower
2) A chess-playing robot
3) 'Back to the Future'-style power laces for your shoes
4) An auto-balancing, Segway-like stool
5) A climate-controller for a greenhouse
6) An LED cube
7) A Twitter trend-powered mood light
8) A knock-detecting door lock
9) A tree-climbing robot
10) An animatronic unicorn
