resources
Project ideas
Reference
General electronics
Arduino related
Programming
Where to spend all your money
Parts/Components
- Adafruit - Great New York based open-source hardware company. Lot's of kits and breakout boards.
- SparkFun - Similar to Adafruit - much larger stock of discrete components and ICs.
- Digi-Key - Huge supplier - lots of everything!
- Mouser - Another huge one.
- Jameco - Fairly large supplier - lots of robotics related stuffs.
- Pololu - tons of awesome robotics components at great prices. (Don't miss their huge annual sale on Black Friday!)
- tINDIE - Brand new site for makers to buy and sell cool stuff - check it out now!
Arduino shields
Services
- Ponoko - Low cost custom 3D printing and laser etching.
- PCB manufacturing - see circuit boards section below.
Going wireless
Here's two really simple and relatively low cost options for wireless communication with the Arduino. Both radios are manufactured by Roving Networks, and use essentially the same easy to use serial command set to configure them. These are ideal when you want to control your Arduino or get data from it wirelessly using your computer, or even an Android phone (perhaps an iPhone too, but who the heck uses those?!). There's a number of differences between wify and bluetooth, and each has their caveats. I (Alex) have had experience with both of these and will be happy to help.
The most popular wireless option for the Arduino is the Xbee radio. There's a whole lot of information to absorb to use Xbee's, so I'll just link to this:
I've yet to take the Xbee plunge myself (only because I'm too cheap to buy them!), but I do know that they are an incredibly powerful tool for many reasons, for example they are low-power, they can be set up to work fairly long range, they have incredible mesh-networking capabilities, etc.. Jim has worked with them before, so ask him about them...
Software
drawing & simulating circuits, programming the Arduino
- CircuitLab - Free online schematic design tool with nice built-in simulator (what we're using for assignments).
- Fritzing - generate schematics from breadboard layouts!
- Eagle PCB design application (standard; big)
- Arduino IDE - need this
- Processing - Similar to Arduino - a simple way to quickly write graphics-based computer programs, and can easily interface with or control the Arduino.
Circuit boards
Etch your own
Just a couple links here, but there's a TON of tutorials out there; Google it!
Or get them manufactured on the cheap!
General info - READ THIS STUFF!!
