Arduino Adventures: Escape from Gemini Station

by James Floyd Kelly, Harold Timmis

Arduino Escape from Gemini Station provides a fun introduction to the Arduino microcontroller by putting you (the reader) into the action of a science fiction adventure story. You'll find yourself following along as Cade and Elle explore Gemini Station—an orbiting museum dedicated to preserving and sharing technology throughout the centuries. Trouble ensues. The station is evacuated, including Cade and Elle's class that was visiting the station on a field trip. Cade and Elle don’t make it aboard their shuttle and are trapped on the station along with a friendly artificial intelligence named Andrew who wants to help them get off the damaged station. Using some old hardware, a laptop, and some toolboxes full of electronics parts, you will follow along and build eight gizmos with Cade and Elle that will help them escape from Gemini Station. The hardware is Arduino. Each new challenge opens a new area of Arduino and basic electronics knowledge. You’ll be taken incrementally from a simple task such as turning on a light through to a complex combination of microcontroller, electronic components, and software programming. By the end of the book you’ll be well on your way towards being able to create and implement any sort of electronically controlled device you can imagine, using the stunningly popular Arduino microcontroller.

Genres: Technology

356 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 23, 2013

Reviews

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this book: a mix of hands on Arduino builds with a kid friendly storyline. Caveat: I've only read through this myself, not yet with our kids. Overall, it was a worthwhile read and I'm looking forward to reading through it with my kids.

There was some compromise in both the story and the electronics build sections to successfully merge them together, but both were both usable. I would have picked some different builds, perhaps more that built on each other. Some later ones get reasonably complicated quickly.

The kits for the book seem to no longer be available. We won't build all of the projects, but will definitely do some of simpler ones.