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What is "The Best" Arduino kit?

8 replies on 1 page. Most recent reply: Mar 1, 2016 3:01 AM by Trudi Wynn

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Bruce Eckel

Posts: 875
Nickname: beckel
Registered: Jun, 2003

What is "The Best" Arduino kit? (View in Weblogs)
 		Posted: Oct 30, 2011 1:24 PM
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Summary
I've been wanting to play with an Arduino for awhile, but there are so many (which is great, but confusing for the first-timer).
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I'd love to hear recommendations as to the best one to start with. Thanks!


Orest Dubay

Posts: 3
Nickname: orest
Registered: Oct, 2010

Re: What is "The Best" Arduino kit? Posted: Oct 31, 2011 2:26 AM
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I am a total novice with Arduino as well. Since I had a couple of LEDs, switches and breadboards in my drawer, I've started withhout a kit - just with a plain Arduino UNO. (Actually I bought two of them - I was affraid that I will fry at least one of them. Did not happen sofar...)
I bought elements, that I thought I will need for my future projects. I've set my expectations low, so I focused mainly on LEDs. A good set of wires with male/female sockets is very handy. Except from LEDs, I had a need for larger amount of resistors to drive the LEDs. A 220 Ohm SIL resistor(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sil_resistor.png) proved to be very practical with LED bars and breadboards.

Paul Grunwald

Posts: 5
Nickname: pgrunwald
Registered: Jul, 2009

Re: What is "The Best" Arduino kit? Posted: Oct 31, 2011 5:20 PM
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Hi Bruce,

You might want to start with something like this unless you have a lot of electronic components laying around.

http://www.adafruit.com/products/68

Best regards,
Paul

Vincent O'Sullivan

Posts: 724
Nickname: vincent
Registered: Nov, 2002

Re: What is "The Best" Arduino kit? Posted: Nov 1, 2011 2:47 AM
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You don't say why you're interested in Arduino but - assuming the purpose is to build some kind of programmable, semi-autonimous, potentially mobile device that can interact with its surroundings, with the minimum of hardware skills requirements - a complete alternative can be found in Lego, of all things.

http://us.mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/community/NXTLog/default.aspx

(Admittedly, Arduino does have the big advantage that it looks like "real" electronics, rather than a kid's toy.)

Orest Dubay

Posts: 3
Nickname: orest
Registered: Oct, 2010

Re: What is "The Best" Arduino kit? Posted: Nov 1, 2011 6:06 AM
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It is difficult to say, what is "the best". An ADK kit is on my midterm "to buy" list - if you are going to start, why not to try that immediately ?

I guess, a combination of Electronic brick starter kit and Grove ADK dash kit could provide a lot of fun (and without soldering):

http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/electronic-brick-starter-kit-p-506.html?cPath=138
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/grove-adk-dash-kit-p-929.html?cPath=138

Orest Dubay

Posts: 3
Nickname: orest
Registered: Oct, 2010

Re: What is "The Best" Arduino kit? Posted: Nov 1, 2011 6:14 AM
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Correction:
Consider http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/grove-starter-kit-p-709.html?cPath=138 instead of Electronic brick kit - but maybe it is even not necessary since the Grove ADK kit contains enough stuff...

Rinie Kervel

Posts: 26
Nickname: rinie
Registered: Oct, 2005

Re: What is "The Best" Arduino kit? Posted: Nov 14, 2011 6:57 AM
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Depends on what you want to do.
Soldering, Breadboards, connecting or shields.

I have an UNO and a Duemillenova plus basis Make components set + Book.
Breadboard like
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/arduino-sidekick-basic-kit-p-775.html?cPath=138

But also Grove starterkit
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/grove-starter-kit-p-709.html?cPath=138

And jeemon http://jeelabs.com/products/jeelink

I discovered that SMD soldering is not my thing, so I look for preassembled electronics nowadays.

I liked http://www.practicalarduino.com/ the book. The shields seem expensive

Frank Dracman

Posts: 1
Nickname: clemming
Registered: Dec, 2011

Re: What is "The Best" Arduino kit? Posted: Dec 6, 2011 1:34 PM
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Sparkfun Inventor's Kit.

Comes with a great little manual with 14 projects you can build right away and all of the parts.

I got mine at Amazon because of the free shipping or you can buy it direct from sparkfun.com (the sparkfun website is well worth a visit in either case).

Trudi Wynn

Posts: 1
Nickname: trudiw
Registered: Mar, 2016

Re: What is "The Best" Arduino kit? Posted: Mar 1, 2016 3:01 AM
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> I'd love to hear recommendations as to the best one to
> start with. Thanks!

The Arduino bug -"Ringo" is really cool - based on Arduino Uno but it moves and has lots of sensors etc.

Get it from www dot plumgeek dot com I love it, and I have nearly 20 Esplora Arduino boards for my students.

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