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Welcome to the world of Arduino




Whether you are a newbie or an expert at programming/ electronics and want unleash your creativity though microprocessor programming, Arduino is just the perfect platform for you to kick off.

 This mini wonder is a micro-controller which is nothing but a small computer that you can control to perform various functions . E.g Turing LED lamp on/off . Hold on! You may wonder "why would I need a 'computer' to turn on a LED ? I can do it with a switch !"

Consider this - you want a LED to blink after every 1 minute, or a more complex situation of a traffic signal, where multiple LED lamps need to turn on/off periodically....... or even more difficult situation where the traffic varies a lot. Now Green signal needs to be kept on in proportion to the traffic in that lane. It means, traffic in all lanes needs to be sensed to control the traffic light all the time. 
These problems cannot be solved by a mere switch. Only a computer. Can perform such tasks. And O boy! Arduino can do just that ( & much more) in a breeze! 

Before programming let us try to understand how this micro-wonder looks like and acquaint ourselves with it. 

What is the meaning of Arduino? 
      Well as usual & as always, experts have divided opinion about it Some say it means valuable friend. Others debate it's name of Italian king. 
      Never mind the experts, for us it's a pocket sized computer , but to program it, you need another computer ☻ . Just like different generations of Mac OS have different names, different generation of Arduino have different names e.g Mega,Uno,Nano,Lilypad etc. 
Uno
Uno


I own Arduino  Uno ( thanks to my uncle) & find it very useful for beginners ( like me). I'd recommend The Arduino Starter Kit for beginners. 
Arduino Starter Kit
Official Starter Kit

Let us try to understand the basic components of  the Arduino Uno


1.  USB port
It is used to connect your Arduino to your computer via a USB cable ( provided in the kit). Also used to supply power ( electricity).

2. The Power LED
  It simply shows whether your board is ON . It is green when ON .

3. Power Connecter
 It is used to connect external power supply to your Arduino. Accepted voltage for UNO is (Input Voltage ) 7-12V. 
The question arises why do we need external power supply when we have USB to power the Arduino? 

   Once the program is transferred to Arduino, it stays in its memory.  Now if external power is connected, you do not need connection to PC just to supply the power.

4. Micro controller 
It is the heart ( or should we say brain? ) of the Arduino just like CPU is for regular computers. It is powered by Atmel Atmega chip. 

This chip not only has a processor but  RAM, ROM & logic for analog and digital input/output also. 

5. Digital input/output
It is meant for giving digital input / output i.e. 0/1 or 0V and 5V. The pins marked with '~' symbol in front of the numbers  are PWM pins ( I'll explain what it is  later)

6. Analog input
As the name suggests these pins are used to receive analog (varying  voltage ) input. ( again I'll explain it later)

    7. TX & RX LEDs
     These  show transfer (TX) and receiving (RX) between your computer and Arduino.

    8. Reset button
     It starts the uploaded program afresh. 

     9. Pin 13 LED / On board LED 
      It is used for testing purpose or debugging( troubleshooting ) the program. It is connected to pin 13 of microprocessor

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