Getting Started with Arduino: The Open Source Electronics Prototyping Platform

by Massimo Banzi, Michael Shiloh

Arduino is the hot open source prototyping platform for artists, hobbyists, students, and anyone who wants to create interactive physical environments. Getting Started with Arduino is co-authored by Arduino co-founder Massimo Banzi, and incorporates his experience in teaching, using, and creating Arduino.

Genres: Nonfiction, Programming, Technology, Computer Science, Science, Technical, Engineering

264 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 15, 2008

Reviews

[Jason Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just read this book in an effort to learn some electronics. I would have thought that a book about microprocessors and physical computing would be putting the cart before the horse in this regard, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the advice I'd been given was right - this is a nice way to learn about putting together circuits. That the circuits have sensors and require a bit of coding to get working make them even more fun (for me) to learn about.

This book is short, very straightforward to read, and exceedingly clear. Having an arduino to work with at the same time made ALL the difference for me. I could put together the 'machines' that were described in the book while reading about them and the function of the various components (software and hardware).

[Eric Mesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Massimo and his co-writer do an excellent job creating an introduction to the Arduino board. I started mucking around with the boards before reading this book because I'd done some projects with Atmel chips in undergrad (a couple decades ago) and I do software programming on the side. But I wish I'd read this book first as it would have saved me time on figuring stuff out on my own that's unique to Arduino as well as stuff that I'd forgotten in the intervening decades. Programming hardware chips is very different from general purpose programming for a computer or cell phone. Not only are resources on the chip a lot more limited (although, in the case of the Raspberry Pi - getting closer and closer to a regular desktop), but input and output is also more limited. These microcontroller boards are meant for automation projects where you set something up (like a system to water your plants based on whether or not it is going to rain) or limited interactions. They're running in a never-ending loop and that requires a different mindset.

The best thing about this book, though, is that Massimo has targeted it towards the non-technical. I didn't find it annoying to read as someone who knows about this stuff, but I feel that he has reached his goal of allowing the non-technical to become hobbyists or even for artists to integrate microcontrollers into their art. For example, the final chapter is a great resource on how to do debugging that even introduced me to some new concepts (again as someone who's been doing software for the past 20 years instead of hardware). It even has a section on how to ask for help in forums.

If you would like to do something neat with microcontrollers (and if you don't even know what you could do - visit this site https://hackaday.io/discover and see the cool stuff people are doing! (examples right now include digital thermometers, a NASA-looking control panel for the video game Kerbal Space program, a laser harp, various synthesizers, robots, smart mirrors, a DIY google glass thing, Internet of Things ... it goes on and on.... )) - check out this book!

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book to supplement the one that comes with the official arduino kit. It's not perfect, but for me it made a lot of things come together.

Pros:
- as a very visually minded person, I found this book the most helpful of the ones I've seen (those being the official book and Jeremy Blum's) at explaining exactly how things work. It might seem overly simplistic or even a little patronizing by the time you get to the middle of the book, but that was what I needed to get the foundation required for me to successfully move to more complex projects and truly grasp the concepts enough to adapt them to my own purposes.
- book walks step by step through the projects and continues this through the complex ones. I appreciated that they did this as it meant I could read through the book and more or less understand what was going on without having to flip back a million times.
- written engagingly. Some how-to books are meant for flipping, not reading. This book you can do both.
- I really appreciated the great walk-through of how to read a schematic diagram, and how they showed it next to an artist's rendering of the same setup. That is a piece I'd been missing for a while.
- great index! Seriously this is important if you're going to be using this as a reference.
- great supplemental material. Read or at least flip through the entire book- I didn't realize how much useful stuff was at the end of the book til I got there the usual way. Much of it would've been helpful as I was working through the beginning projects.

Cons:
- I don't love the artist's renderings in general. I found myself going back to the arduino Kit book, which for all its faults has very clear images, to confirm my understanding of project setup, at least early on
- tone for projects is more conversational, less recipe-like. This makes for engaging reading but also makes it a bit inconvenient to just jump in and start a project because there's no clear visual marker for supply list, steps, troubleshooting as there are in some other how-tos.
- organization and pace are not the best. It goes from pretty simple blink-an-LED variations, to a totally out-of-place-seeming chapter about the Leonardo board (if it's that different I feel like either make that another book or make it an appendix- it was weird having this totally irrelevant (to me) chapter in the middle of the book) After the blinking projects, there are a few pages about operating a fan and some more complex sensors, and then you're soldering and making a garden irrigation system. I felt this book lacked in intermediate projects.
- some stuff missing at the beginning. As mentioned above, flip to the back. Many things I needed clarification on were back there and I didn't realize til later.

Overall this was a good purchase and a good complement to the kit I have. As the book clearly states, it is not for engineers. But if you are like me, that is a person who's very visual and fascinated with the possibilities of arduino but has trouble with standard textbook information about electronics, this might be the bridge you need in order to get to that textbook information.

[Marin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not a bad introduction to Arduino and electronics. I found it useful as a quick reminder of the key elements of electronics, though physics is kept at a bare minimum.

Coding sections are quite useful to quickly get up and running with Arduino's programming language.

[Sreena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a step-by-step approach, making it easy for anyone, even those with no prior programming experience, to understand and start working with Arduino.

- Emphasizes the basic concepts of electronics and programming in a clear and concise manner, making it accessible to readers from various backgrounds.
- hands-on approach of the book, as it includes numerous practical projects that allow readers to apply what they've learned and build their own Arduino-based creations.
- Covers a wide range of topics, from setting up the Arduino hardware and software to understanding sensors, actuators, and communication protocols.
- Explanations are accompanied by illustrations, diagrams, and code examples, which greatly enhance the learning experience and help clarify complex concepts.

[Bryan Whitehead · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book isn’t going to do you much good if you don’t have an Arduino microcontroller board, preferably the one that comes in Make’s basic Arduino kit. But if you’ve got the stuff, this is a good introduction to the magical land of microcontrollers. The text is written with artists rather than engineers in mind, which was a real blessing for me. I had no trouble at all until the last “sketch,” when things got really elaborate really quickly. Indeed, prior to that a lot of the chapters were a bit too basic. Still, it was nice to work with introductory electronics on the wading pool level rather than the high board into the deep end. The whole kit is an excellent investment for anyone with an interest in the subject.

[Charlie Harrington · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bite-sized (byte-sized?) dive into the world of physical computing with Arduino - written by its creator. Approachable for all coding skill levels, the book provides a few simple projects along the way to get you up and running with some nice blinking LEDs - and inspires you to dream of even more. I would have liked to see more detailed diagrams for the placement of items on the breadboard, which was a bit hard to interpret, but the book encourages trial and error, so I guess it’s all part of the master plan.

[Ilumi_do3 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Está bien para los principiantes en Arduino y los circuitos eléctricos, aunque siento que le falta más contenido. Me parecio demasiado introductorio y apresurado. Esperaba que fuera a explicar un poco más del hardware de Arduino, de sus partes, y no que solo iba a ser un compendio de experimentos electrónicos.
Me dejó un regusto amargo, pero, bueno... ¿qué esperaba yo de un libro cuyo título comienza con 'Getting Started'?

[F · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is only good if you already know electronics.

All of the explanations in this book are shallow. I haven't learned anything. I had to look up every component on the internet to understand anything presented in this book.

This book only gave me rough idea of what an Arduino can do. That is all it's useful for.

[Prince Nwaonicha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely good for visual learners. But you need to have all the parts in order to put it together. It definitely is a good supplementary book to an arduino book to get you more familiar with some of the more robust arduino learning books.

[Timeo Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is great on the early chapters, but could improve in it's display/instruction of the more complicated projects and let the reader know beforehand that certain parts must be bought outside of the Arduino starter kit.

[Robin Dong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy to understand.

[Shri30yans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite good and interesting.....Easy to understand

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction to Arduino, pretty clear with background and building examples. I wish it did a little more instructing and less spoon-feeding.

[Jeff Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great intro to a fascinating electronics experimentation tool.

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

给小白看的书，十来分钟翻完了

[Reda Sounni]

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[Justrezy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Membuka wawasan mengenai arduino lebih jauh dan lebih dalam lagi baik mengenai komponen maupun cara-cara memprogram yang jarang dibahas pada beberapa buku yang lain.

[Aitzol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Terminado el 2013-02

[Craig Horne]

Was a good introduction to Arduino - will not make you an expert, but a good starting point

[Matija · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent introduction of the Arduino platform. If you're already familiar with microcontrollers and/or programming, it might feel a little patronizing at times, but I guess the intended target are people who don't really know anything about either before they pick up this book.

It's good that every chapter (except the introductions) contains an actual project that you can complete and that illustrates the particular concept you're learning about, rather than just explaining the theory of the concept.

The introductory chapters on how to set up everything and what everything is are probably too long and drawn out, but that is made up by the very useful reference appendices at the end of the book

[AfaqElahi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am the student of 2nd year and I am studying these websites from 4 years

[Mateus Oliveira · Rating 4 out of 5]

bom

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good introduction to the concepts of Arduino, from the founding master. Includes some philosophical 'fluff' as the author calls it, which is nonetheless useful, relevant and appropriate. No one else would have been able to convey that stuff, as to why the platform is like it is. The generalist diagram of sense/operate/output is fantastically useful as a concept for the platform modus operandi. Overall technically, the book is a well written overview of functions(), setup, pins, and the difference between analog and digital pin I/O. One could do a lot worse. The examples given start out very useful, but the only failing of the book is that it then goes down a tortuous path of education, making a single button press into something complex-- debouncing it, writing code all around it for exceptions and clock delays, the reasons for which are complicated and could leave beginners baffled. Then at the last, it launches an example a mile forward with an undocumented multipage sketch that only an expert would want to dive into. Still, the path to examine a particular thing like a button in depth has its merits, and maybe one could have written the book with an eye on just the most prominent and used code that are called. There are many ways to educate. Recommended as a great read, introduction to the platform, and for the first examples. After this book, a best path would be to join the online community, start reading other sites, copying and manipulating others examples, tweaking, tinkering, testing and iterating prototypes, and using a web enabled Arduino IDE and UNO. Thanks

[Arjen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This starts really well with explaining what the Arduino is can can do. Some easy examples with a LED, a few wires and transistors -- that's all fine. I made it make a LED blink when I pressed a button! Now that's cool.

Then suddenly is talks about the Leonardo board, how much it rocks and is much better than the Uno, and the next step is buying a lamp from IKEA to get some lamp that connects to the internet. And the next chapter involves even more expansive parts. I still have stuff in my box I haven't touched -- displays, a remote, buzzers. What about those?

I'm glad I got some box with a few things in it, because most of the chapters start with "now you need this, it's in the Arduino store!". Yea, and then you'd have to wait for it to show up by mail.

Meanwhile I'm still clueless why my previous simple examples work (why do I need a resistor, and why does it have to be x Ohm, and why x Ohm this time, and why do I need to put the wires in that part of the breadboard etc. etc.). The images don't help and while the book mentions you need no previous experience, I think the author assumed you did anyway, because I didn't find it all very helpful.

So to summarize, you can use the first few chapters, and actually get a good introduction to Arduino and simple electronics. What'd you need is:

- An Andruino (clone), I have a Uno R3 Clone (and USB cable)
- Breadboard
- A dozen or so bread lines (wires)
- Some LED
- A LRD (light sensor)
- A push button
- 220 Ohm resistor
- 10k Ohm resistor

With just those units, you can get through most of the book before it starts selling you a more expansive microboard.

[Todd N · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read through this quick book last night instead of falling asleep. I didn't get much done at work today, but it was worth it.

This is a great introduction to the Arduino microcontroller project. It's as open source as all get out -- the hardware designs, the IDE, etc. are all under open source license. I saw a couple Arduino compatible boards at Fry's this week, and I've been debating buying one to fool around with it and to introduce my kids to the wonderful world of electronic prototyping on a breadboard. The only things really holding me back are (1) not really having time for a new hobby and (2) not really having space for sprawling electronics projects. (I really need to find myself a part time job so that I can read more and goof around more...)

This book is by a founder of the project, so you are getting the real information and a real sense of the "community over code" (or whatever Orwellean phrase the open source guys are using these days). There are a few very basic but very practical projects for getting around real-world problems like switch bounce and driving devices that require more current than an LED.

You could probably get the same information reading through arduino.cc, but it wouldn't be as convenient or as linear.

There is a companion starter kit (called the Make Getting Started with Arduino Kit) that you can get at Radio Shack or on the makezine.com web site that has all the necessary components to implement the projects in the book.

[Yash E · Rating 5 out of 5]

A simple but great book to get someone started on Arduino, especially Arduino Uno boards. I got myself an Arduino Kit sometime back and got a thick book with it to explain the working the board and some projects too. Few people advised me not to go with that book at the beginning as it was laced with mistakes. I was looking for a simple starter and found this. What could be more amazing than book written by the man behind Arduino itself?

I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to start with Arduino. The book starts with a short history of the origin and intentions behind Arduino. The author then takes a "teach-by-example" way to explain the functions and logic to program an Arduino and get it do things for you. Throughout the book the limitations and capabilities of Arduino are clearly mentioned and are very important. The book ends with how the Uno board can be used for an IoT project, Troubleshooting and some important appendices for total beginners in electronics.

Despite being a good introductory text for people with any level of understanding on Arduino, this is just a beginners guide and should be treated as one. Further readings over topics like Networking, etc. are to be referred in other books on Arduino. This is a very quick start guide that opens the world of Arduino and gives you a clear idea of what it can do for you.

[Kaptin Dandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for anyone looking to learn about electronics. No prior knowledge is required. As the title says the book is about getting started with Arduino.

Quoting the Arduino website; "Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments."

This book takes you from the basics of electronics and blinking a small light to more advanced topics involving communication between software on your computer and the Arduino.

[Faisal Nawab · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides an introduction to Arduino. It is meant for an audience with no background in computer programming and hardware. It can be very boring and naive for a reader with background in programming/hardware. However, it would be really good for a geek-in-the-making teenager or a non-technical professional that would like to use micro-controllers in his field.

The book's method is a hand-on experience, mostly examples. It also provides information about the community and history of Arduino. Impressive how the author simplifies technical details to the non-technical, a feat all engineers and scientists must have.

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really an excellent book for arduino beginners. Be careful, however, if you're an engineer it specifically states that you aren't really the intended audience. The author, who is one of the leaders of the arduino project, recommends his book for designers and cracks a few jokes about engineers. The language can seem like you are being talked down to, but that could have just been because I have taken a C programming course in the past. There are a couple tutorials that are definitely useful if you have never before used an arduino, and it effectively introduces the reader to the programming language. I would recommend it if you need to learn arduino basics quickly.