What You Need
1. An Arduino board, such as the Uno, Duemilanove, or Diecimila.
2. A USB cable to connect the Arduino to your computer.
3. The Arduino IDE (see Installing the Arduino IDE, on page 10). You will
need it in every chapter, so after this chapter I’ll no longer mention it
explicitly.
You’ll find photos such as this in most of the following chapters. The numbers
in the photo correspond to the numbers in the parts list. In later chapters
the photos do not show standard parts, such as the Arduino board or a USB
cable.
What Exactly Is an Arduino?
Beginners often get confused when they discover the Arduino project. When
looking for the Arduino, they hear and read strange names such as Uno,
Duemilanove, Diecimila, LilyPad, or Seeeduino. The problem is that there is
no such thing as “the Arduino.”
A couple of years ago, the Arduino team designed a microcontroller board
and released it under an open-source license. You could buy fully assembled
Chapter 1. Welcome to the Arduino • 4
report erratum • discuss
www.it-ebooks.info