What to do with Adruino starter kit

[Spoiled_Kitten]

Hi all, I just got an arduino Uno starter kit for my birthday, I'm not sure what i should have for my first build, I haven't used Arduino before so not sure how to use them, seen plenty of builds and stuff with them though, Any suggestions i should have for my first build?

[Bombastinator]

16 minutes ago, Spoiled_Kitten said:

Hi all, I just got an arduino Uno starter kit for my birthday, I'm not sure what i should have for my first build, I haven't used Arduino before so not sure how to use them, seen plenty of builds and stuff with them though, Any suggestions i should have for my first build?

The uno doesn’t have a lot of grunt.  There are some cute robot walker toy kits that use em.  Maybe also a 3d printer if you’re feeling ambitious. 

[MonkeyPants]

Try with some simple stuff first to get a feeling for it. Like making an LED shine brighter based on the distance of an object (with an ultrasonic sensor).

[straight_stewie]

Build a device that can sense whether the steering wheel of a vehicle moved because of bump steer or because the operator turned the steering wheel. Assume a mechanical connection between the steering gear and the steering wheel.

Just kidding. Your first couple of times you will probably end up just doing whatever you can, rather than what you really want.

[Mortenrb]

There's lots you could do! It all depends on the kit you got, and what you envision to do with it, the sky is the limit!

 

Arduino is great for prototyping nearly everything, and something as complex as a robot cleaner/vacuum could be simple-ish to do with an arduino.

 

May I suggest for you to head over to Arduino Project Hub, it's a great location for inspiration!
https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub

[Spoiled_Kitten]

22 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

The uno doesn’t have a lot of grunt.  There are some cute robot walker toy kits that use em.  Maybe also a 3d printer if you’re feeling ambitious. 

Any designs that will work with a 3d printer lol

[Spoiled_Kitten]

17 hours ago, MonkeyPants said:

Try with some simple stuff first to get a feeling for it. Like making an LED shine brighter based on the distance of an object (with an ultrasonic sensor).

That would be simple tbh.

[Spoiled_Kitten]

7 hours ago, Mortenrb said:

There's lots you could do! It all depends on the kit you got, and what you envision to do with it, the sky is the limit!

 

Arduino is great for prototyping nearly everything, and something as complex as a robot cleaner/vacuum could be simple-ish to do with an arduino.

 

May I suggest for you to head over to Arduino Project Hub, it's a great location for inspiration!
https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub

Yeah, When i get home ill share the photos of i, quite a lot of stuff

[Bombastinator]

There’s an argument for setting yourself up for success here.  

[Spoiled_Kitten]

32 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

There’s an argument for setting yourself up for success here.  

Here is what it has

Package Included: 

• 1 X UNO Board 
• 1 X USB Cable 
• 1 X Jump Cable 
• 1 X Breadboard 
• 5 X LED Light 
• 1 Pack Resistor 
• 1 X Female to male dupont line 
• 1 X Potentiometer 
• 1 X Buzzer  
• 1 X 74HC595 
• 1 X Infrared receiver 
• 1 X LM35 
• 1 X Flame Sensor 
• 1 X Ball Switch 
• 1 X Photoresistor 
• 1 X Key button 
• 1 X Remote control 
• 1 X 4-digit display tube 
• 1 X 8*8 Dot matrix module 
• 1 X 1-digit display tube 
• 1 X Stepper motor driver board 
• 1 X Stepper motor 
• 1 X 9g Servo 
• 1 X IIC 1602 LCD 
• 1 X XY joystick module 
• 1 X Temperature module 
• 1 X Water test module 
• 1 X RFID Module 
• 1 X RFID keychain 
• 1 X RFID White card 
• 1 X Sound Module 
• 1 X Relay Module 
• 1 X Clock Module 
• 1 X 4*4 Key board 
• 1 X RGB 3 color module 
• 1 X 9V battery Snap

Brand: iDuino

[Mortenrb]

Okay, so it seems like it's one of those bigger starter sets, which is great, this means you're basically not limited, unless you need e.g. multiple wheels and such.

 

However, you could start with something simple, like using a temperature module with the LCD to make a digital room temperature reader. You could further expand that to include buttons, so you could switch between e.g. light (photo resistor) and temperature... this should give you a good understanding for the basics of coding with arduino, and scaling sensors.

 

Using the 74HC595, which is a shift-out module, you can basically control 8 digital outputs from one serial output, so you can start simple with maybe a couple of traffic lights and controll it accordingly?

 

If you want to got slightly further, you can even use the LCD or 8*8 Dot matrix with buttons or the joystick module and make a simple game, maybe flappy-bird, space invader, tetris or well... anything within the arduino restraints?

 

Oh, and Instructables is a quite interesting website as well, for all hobby designs, not only arduino

https://www.instructables.com/

[Spoiled_Kitten]

10 hours ago, Mortenrb said:

Okay, so it seems like it's one of those bigger starter sets, which is great, this means you're basically not limited, unless you need e.g. multiple wheels and such.

 

However, you could start with something simple, like using a temperature module with the LCD to make a digital room temperature reader. You could further expand that to include buttons, so you could switch between e.g. light (photo resistor) and temperature... this should give you a good understanding for the basics of coding with arduino, and scaling sensors.

 

Using the 74HC595, which is a shift-out module, you can basically control 8 digital outputs from one serial output, so you can start simple with maybe a couple of traffic lights and controll it accordingly?

 

If you want to got slightly further, you can even use the LCD or 8*8 Dot matrix with buttons or the joystick module and make a simple game, maybe flappy-bird, space invader, tetris or well... anything within the arduino restraints?

 

Oh, and Instructables is a quite interesting website as well, for all hobby designs, not only arduino

https://www.instructables.com/

Yeah seen that site, Will look into it! thanlks!

[straight_stewie]

There are many replies claiming that the Uno isn't very powerful. They are kind of right, but also kind of not right:

The Uno itself is much more powerful than people think it is, you just can't quite make full use of it from the Arduino platform. The Arduino software stack is severely limiting when it comes to making full use of the devices that come on Arduino boards.

The MCU on the Uno is more than powerful enough to do silly things like land men on the moon or whatever (not even kidding probably. It has roughly equivalent memory and is faster. Using the peripherals on the chip, you cold probably overcome the lack of the AGCs mission specific interfaces).

What these SBCs/Dev boards can do is much more about what you can make them do.

I'm struggling to come up with interesting ideas that only use the parts on the list you gave, but since I'm on the moon landing track, you could add a single component: An ultrasonic transceiver, and make yourself a SONAR. Not quite RADAR, but the principle is the same. There are a few guides out there on how to do this. For a challenge, make a SAS (Synthetic Aperture Sonar), or a tracking SONAR (which should be perfectly legal in most places because it's not a RADAR).

[Spoiled_Kitten]

On 6/17/2020 at 1:52 AM, straight_stewie said:

There are many replies claiming that the Uno isn't very powerful. They are kind of right, but also kind of not right:

The Uno itself is much more powerful than people think it is, you just can't quite make full use of it from the Arduino platform. The Arduino software stack is severely limiting when it comes to making full use of the devices that come on Arduino boards.

The MCU on the Uno is more than powerful enough to do silly things like land men on the moon or whatever (not even kidding probably. It has roughly equivalent memory and is faster. Using the peripherals on the chip, you cold probably overcome the lack of the AGCs mission specific interfaces).

What these SBCs/Dev boards can do is much more about what you can make them do.

I'm struggling to come up with interesting ideas that only use the parts on the list you gave, but since I'm on the moon landing track, you could add a single component: An ultrasonic transceiver, and make yourself a SONAR. Not quite RADAR, but the principle is the same. There are a few guides out there on how to do this. For a challenge, make a SAS (Synthetic Aperture Sonar), or a tracking SONAR (which should be perfectly legal in most places because it's not a RADAR).

So with the sonar, would it just track where something is?

[straight_stewie]

4 hours ago, Spoiled_Kitten said:

So with the sonar, would it just track where something is?

Well, a tracking SONAR would track things.

A much easier task is just to draw something on a screen where you get a "return" (in the case of SONAR, an echo).

[Spoiled_Kitten]

On 6/18/2020 at 1:39 PM, straight_stewie said:

Well, a tracking SONAR would track things.

A much easier task is just to draw something on a screen where you get a "return" (in the case of SONAR, an echo).

Ah so could it be anything or would i need a device on the other side?

[Bombastinator]

14 hours ago, Spoiled_Kitten said:

Ah so could it be anything or would i need a device on the other side?

From the sonar stuff I have seen, I’ve used them for measurement of spaces.  The whole point is it bounces a signal at a known speed then waits for the echo and times it very exactly.  So emitter and recievr are one unit or two units placed next to each other.   My experience with them is “tape less tape measures” where you point this thing at a wall when you want to know how far away it is.  I suspect it’s commonly used for wall detection with robots.  It can be used for all kinds of things though.

[straight_stewie]

18 hours ago, Spoiled_Kitten said:

Ah so could it be anything or would i need a device on the other side?

I suppose it could be done either way, but usually the transmitter and receiver are one unit.

If you have them as two units, and they are opposed to each other, then you will only be able to "see" things that are physically between the transmitter and receiver.

The idea is that you have one unit which is both a transmitter and receiver. The transmitter transmits some pulse of a known frequency. The receiver waits to hear the pulse return. The time it takes for that pulse to return amounts to how far away the object is, because Distance = Speed * Time and we know both the speed of the pulse and the amount of time it took to return. Actually, in this case, Distance = Speed * (Time / 2) because you have to wait for the pulse to travel the distance twice.

Theoretically, this algorithm works for any "thing" which can be transmitted over distance, received, and reflected by the objects that you are trying to see with it: Sound, radio, and light are the three common forms of this technology: SONAR, RADAR, and LIDAR.

[Spoiled_Kitten]

6 hours ago, straight_stewie said:

I suppose it could be done either way, but usually the transmitter and receiver are one unit.

If you have them as two units, and they are opposed to each other, then you will only be able to "see" things that are physically between the transmitter and receiver.

The idea is that you have one unit which is both a transmitter and receiver. The transmitter transmits some pulse of a known frequency. The receiver waits to hear the pulse return. The time it takes for that pulse to return amounts to how far away the object is, because Distance = Speed * Time and we know both the speed of the pulse and the amount of time it took to return. Actually, in this case, Distance = Speed * (Time / 2) because you have to wait for the pulse to travel the distance twice.

Theoretically, this algorithm works for any "thing" which can be transmitted over distance, received, and reflected by the objects that you are trying to see with it: Sound, radio, and light are the three common forms of this technology: SONAR, RADAR, and LIDAR.

oof ok, i see.