Arduino

Arduino is an open-source platform used for building electronics

projects. Arduino consists of both a physical programmable circuit
board (often referred to as a microcontroller) and a piece of software,
or IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that runs on your
computer, used to write and upload computer code to the physical
board.
The Arduino platform has become quite popular with people just
starting out with electronics, and for good reason. Unlike most previous
programmable circuit boards, the Arduino does not need a separate
piece of hardware (called a programmer) in order to load new code onto
the board -- you can simply use a USB cable. Additionally, the Arduino
IDE uses a simplified version of C++, making it easier to learn to
program. Finally, Arduino provides a standard form factor that breaks
out the functions of the micro-controller into a more accessible
package.

This is an Arduino Uno

The Uno is one of the more popular boards in the Arduino family and
a great choice for beginners. We'll talk about what's on it and what it
can do later in the tutorial.

This is a screenshot of the Arduino IDE.

Believe it or not, those 10 lines of code are all you need to blink the on-
board LED on your Arduino.

Arduino is a great tool for people of all skill levels. However, you will
have a much better time learning along side your Arduino if you
understand some basic fundamental electronics beforehand. We
recommend that you have at least a decent understanding of these
concepts before you dive in to the wonderful world of Arduino.
What Does it Do?
The Arduino hardware and software was designed for artists, designers,
hobbyists, hackers, newbies, and anyone interested in creating
interactive objects or environments. Arduino can interact with buttons,
LEDs, motors, speakers, GPS units, cameras, the internet, and even
your smart-phone or your TV! This flexibility combined with the fact
that the Arduino software is free, the hardware boards are pretty cheap,
and both the software and hardware are easy to learn has led to a large
community of users who have contributed code and released
instructions for a huge variety of Arduino-based projects.
For everything from robots and a heating pad hand warming
blanket to honest fortune-telling machines, and even a Dungeons and
Dragons dice-throwing gauntlet, the Arduino can be used as the brains
behind almost any electronics project.

_Wear your nerd cred on your sleev... err, arm. _

What's on the board?

There are many varieties of Arduino boards that can be used for
different purposes. Some boards look a bit different from the one
below, but most Arduinos have the majority of these components in
common:
Power (USB / Barrel Jack)
Every Arduino board needs a way to be connected to a power source.
The Arduino UNO can be powered from a USB cable coming from
your computer or a wall power supply (that is terminated in a barrel
jack. In the picture above the USB connection is labeled (1) and the
barrel jack is labeled (2).
The USB connection is also how you will load code onto your Arduino
board.
NOTE: Do NOT use a power supply greater than 20 Volts as you will
overpower (and thereby destroy) your Arduino. The recommended
voltage for most Arduino models is between 6 and 12 Volts.

Pins (5V, 3.3V, GND, Analog, Digital, PWM, AREF)

The pins on your Arduino are the places where you connect wires to
construct a circuit (probably in conjuction with a breadboard and
some wire. They usually have black plastic ‘headers’ that allow you to
just plug a wire right into the board. The Arduino has several different
kinds of pins, each of which is labeled on the board and used for
different functions.

 GND (3): Short for ‘Ground’. There are several GND pins on the
Arduino, any of which can be used to ground your circuit.
 5V (4) & 3.3V (5): As you might guess, the 5V pin supplies 5
volts of power, and the 3.3V pin supplies 3.3 volts of power. Most
of the simple components used with the Arduino run happily off
of 5 or 3.3 volts.
 Analog (6): The area of pins under the ‘Analog In’ label (A0
through A5 on the UNO) are Analog In pins. These pins can read
the signal from an analog sensor (like a temperature sensor) and
convert it into a digital value that we can read.
 Digital (7): Across from the analog pins are the digital pins (0
through 13 on the UNO). These pins can be used for both digital
input (like telling if a button is pushed) and digital output (like
powering an LED).
 PWM (8): You may have noticed the tilde (~) next to some of the
digital pins (3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11 on the UNO). These pins act as
normal digital pins, but can also be used for something called
Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM).
 AREF (9): Stands for Analog Reference. Most of the time you
can leave this pin alone. It is sometimes used to set an external
reference voltage (between 0 and 5 Volts) as the upper limit for
the analog input pins.
Reset Button
Just like the original Nintendo, the Arduino has a reset button (10).
Pushing it will temporarily connect the reset pin to ground and restart
any code that is loaded on the Arduino. This can be very useful if your
code doesn’t repeat, but you want to test it multiple times. Unlike the
original Nintendo however, blowing on the Arduino doesn't usually fix
any problems.

Power LED Indicator

Just beneath and to the right of the word “UNO” on your circuit board,
there’s a tiny LED next to the word ‘ON’ (11). This LED should light
up whenever you plug your Arduino into a power source. If this light
doesn’t turn on, there’s a good chance something is wrong. Time to re-
check your circuit!

TX RX LEDs
TX is short for transmit, RX is short for receive. These markings appear
quite a bit in electronics to indicate the pins responsible for serial
communication. In our case, there are two places on the Arduino UNO
where TX and RX appear -- once by digital pins 0 and 1, and a second
time next to the TX and RX indicator LEDs (12). These LEDs will give
us some nice visual indications whenever our Arduino is receiving or
transmitting data (like when we’re loading a new program onto the
board).

Main IC
The black thing with all the metal legs is an IC, or Integrated
Circuit (13). Think of it as the brains of our Arduino. The main IC on
the Arduino is slightly different from board type to board type, but is
usually from the ATmega line of IC’s from the ATMEL company. This
can be important, as you may need to know the IC type (along with
your board type) before loading up a new program from the Arduino
software. This information can usually be found in writing on the top
side of the IC. If you want to know more about the difference between
various IC's, reading the datasheets is often a good idea.
Voltage Regulator
The voltage regulator (14) is not actually something you can (or should)
interact with on the Arduino. But it is potentially useful to know that it
is there and what it’s for. The voltage regulator does exactly what it
says -- it controls the amount of voltage that is let into the Arduino
board. Think of it as a kind of gatekeeper; it will turn away an extra
voltage that might harm the circuit. Of course, it has its limits, so don’t
hook up your Arduino to anything greater than 20 volts
The Arduino Family
Arduino makes several different boards, each with different
capabilities. In addition, part of being open source hardware means that
others can modify and produce derivatives of Arduino boards that
provide even more form factors and functionality.

Arduino Uno (R3)

The Uno is a great choice for your first Arduino. It's got everything you
need to get started, and nothing you don't. It has 14 digital input/output
pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a USB
connection, a power jack, a reset button and more. It contains
everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to
a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or
battery to get started.

LilyPad Arduino
This is LilyPad Arduino main board! LilyPad is a wearable e-textile
technology developed by Leah Buechley and cooperatively designed
by Leah and SparkFun. Each LilyPad was creatively designed with
large connecting pads and a flat back to allow them to be sewn into
clothing with conductive thread. The LilyPad also has its own family
of input, output, power, and sensor boards that are also built specifically
for e-textiles. They're even washable!

RedBoard
At SparkFun we use many Arduinos and we're always looking for the
simplest, most stable one. Each board is a bit different and no one board
has everything we want -- so we decided to make our own version that
combines all our favorite features.
The RedBoard can be programmed over a USB Mini-B cable using the
Arduino IDE. It'll work on Windows 8 without having to change your
security settings (we used signed drivers, unlike the UNO). It's more
stable due to the USB/FTDI chip we used, plus it's completely flat on
the back, making it easier to embed in your projects. Just plug in the
board, select "Arduino UNO" from the board menu and you're ready to
upload code. You can power the RedBoard over USB or through the
barrel jack. The on-board power regulator can handle anything from 7
to 15VDC.

Arduino Mega (R3)

The Arduino Mega is like the UNO's big brother. It has lots (54!) of
digital input/output pins (14 can be used as PWM outputs), 16 analog
inputs, a USB connection, a power jack, and a reset button. It contains
everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to
a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or
battery to get started. The large number of pins make this board very
handy for projects that require a bunch of digital inputs or outputs (like
lots of LEDs or buttons).
Arduino Leonardo
The Leonardo is Arduino's first development board to use one
microcontroller with built-in USB. This means that it can be cheaper
and simpler. Also, because the board is handling USB directly, code
libraries are available which allow the board to emulate a computer
keyboard, mouse, and more!
The Extended Family
While your Arduino board sure is pretty, it can't do a whole lot on its
own -- you've got to hook it up to something. There are lots of tutorials
here on learn as well as the links back in the 'What does it do' section,
but rarely do we talk about the general kinds of things you can easily
hook into. In this section we'll introduce basic sensors as well as
Arduino shields, two of the most handy tools to use in bringing your
projects to life.

Sensors
With some simple code, the Arduino can control and interact with a
wide variety of sensors - things that can
measure light, temperature, degree of
flex, pressure, proximity, acceleration, carbon
monoxide, radioactivity, humidity, barometric pressure, you name
it, you can sense it!
Just a few of the sensors that are easily compatible with Arduino

Shields
Additionally, there are these things called shields -- basically they are
pre-built circuit boards that fit on top of your Arduino and provide
additional capabilities -- controlling motors, connecting to the
internet, providing cellular or other wireless
communication, controlling an LCD screen, and much more.

A partial selection of available shields to extend the power of your

Arduino
What is a Raspberry Pi?

Raspberry Pi is the name of a series of single-board computers made

by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a UK charity that aims to educate
people in computing and create easier access to computing education.

The Raspberry Pi launched in 2012, and there have been several

iterations and variations released since then. The original Pi had a
single-core 700MHz CPU and just 256MB RAM, and the latest model
has a quad-core CPU clocking in at over 1.5GHz, and 4GB RAM. The
price point for Raspberry Pi has always been under $100 (usually
around $35 USD), most notably the Pi Zero, which costs just $5.

All over the world, people use the Raspberry Pi to learn programming
skills, build hardware projects, do home automation, implement
Kubernetes clusters and Edge computing, and even use them in
industrial applications.
 The Raspberry Pi is a very cheap computer that runs Linux, but it also
provides a set of GPIO (general purpose input/output) pins, allowing
you to control electronic components for physical computing and
explore the Internet of Things (IoT).

See Getting started with Raspberry Pi and download the Raspberry Pi

cheat sheet.

What Raspberry Pi models have been released?

There have been many generations of the Raspberry Pi line: from Pi 1
to 4, and even a Pi 400. There has generally been a Model A and a
Model B of most generations. Model A has been a less expensive
variant, and tends to have reduced RAM and fewer ports (such as USB
and Ethernet). The Pi Zero is a spinoff of the original (Pi 1) generation,
made even smaller and cheaper. Here's the lineup so far:

 Pi 1 Model B (2012)
 Pi 1 Model A (2013)
 Pi 1 Model B+ (2014)
 Pi 1 Model A+ (2014)
 Pi 2 Model B (2015)
 Pi Zero (2015)
 Pi 3 Model B (2016)
 Pi Zero W (2017)
 Pi 3 Model B+ (2018)
 Pi 3 Model A+ (2019)
 Pi 4 Model A (2019)
 Pi 4 Model B (2020)
 Pi 400 (2021)

What's the Raspberry Pi Foundation?

The Raspberry Pi Foundation works to put the power of computing and

digital making into the hands of people all over the world. It does this
by providing low-cost, high-performance computers that people use to
learn, solve problems, and have fun. It provides outreach and education
to help more people access computing and digital making—it develops
free resources to help people learn about computing and making things
with computers and also trains educators who can guide other people
to learn.

Code Club and CoderDojo are part of the Raspberry Pi Foundation,

although these programs are platform-independent (they're not tied to
Raspberry Pi hardware). The Raspberry Pi Foundation promotes these
clubs and helps grow the network around the world in order to ensure
every child has access to learning about computing.
Similarly, Raspberry Jams are Raspberry Pi-focused events for people
of all ages to come together to learn about Raspberry Pi and share ideas
and projects.
Is the Raspberry Pi open source?

The Raspberry Pi operates in the open source ecosystem: it runs Linux

(a variety of distributions), and its main supported operating system, Pi
OS, is open source and runs a suite of open source software. The
Raspberry Pi Foundation contributes to the Linux kernel and various
other open source projects as well as releasing much of its own software
as open source.

The Raspberry Pi's schematics are regularly released as documentation,

but the board is not open hardware.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation relies on income from the sale of

Raspberry Pi units to do its charitable work in the education sector.
What can you do with a Raspberry Pi?

Some people buy a Raspberry Pi to learn to code, and people who can
already code use the Pi to learn to code electronics for physical projects.
The Raspberry Pi can open opportunities for you to create your own
home automation projects, which is popular among people in the open
source community because it puts you in control, rather than using a
proprietary closed system.
 Here are some of the projects you can tackle with Raspberry Pi:

 Block ads on your network with pi-hole

 Set up a Postgres database on a Raspberry Pi
 Make your own Twitter bot with Python and Raspberry Pi
 Build projects using the Raspberry Pi camera
 Create a digital photo viewer

Banana Pi

Banana Pi is a line of single-board computers produced by

the Chinese company Shenzhen SINOVOIP Company, its spin-off
Guangdong BiPai Technology Company, and supported by Hon Hai
Technology (Foxconn). Its hardware design was influenced by
the Raspberry Pi, and both lines use the same 40-pin I/O connector.
Banana Pi also can run NetBSD, Android, Ubuntu, Debian, Arch
Linux and Raspberry Pi OS operating systems, but the CPU complies
with the requirements of the Debian armhf port. Most models use
a MediaTek or Allwinner system on a chip with two or
four ARM Cortex cores.
Series and generations
Banana Pi BPI-M1
The Banana Pi BPI-M1 features an Allwinner dual-core SoC at 1 GHz,
1GB of DDR3 SDRAM, Gigabit Ethernet, SATA, USB,
and HDMI connections, and a built-in 3.7V Li-ion battery-charging
circuit. It can run on a variety of operating systems, including Android,
Ubuntu, Debian, and Raspberry Pi OS.
Neither Banana Pi nor Shenzhen SINOVOIP Company haa a direct
relationship with the Raspberry Pi Foundation.[3] Linux User &
Developer does not consider it a "direct clone, but a considerable
evolution," whilst linux.com sees it as a clone with improved
performance.
Banana Pi BPI-M1+
The Banana BPI-M1+ is a credit-card-sized, low-power single-board
computer.
Banana Pi BPI-M2
The Banana Pi M2 (BPI-M2) is a quad-core version of Banana Pi and
supports onboard Wi-Fi.
Banana Pi BPI-M2+ (BPI-M2 Plus)
The Banana PI BPI-M2+, released in April 2016, has an Allwinner H3
SoC with a quad-core CPU and an onboard Wi-Fi module. It runs
Android, Debian, Ubuntu, and Raspberry Pi OS.
Banana Pi BPI-M2 Zero
The Banana Pi BPI-M2 Zero is a low-power single-board
computer with an Allwinner quad-core SoC at 1.2 GHz, 512MB of
DDR3 SDRAM, USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and mini HDMI.
Banana Pi BPI-M2 Ultra
The Banana PI BPI-M2 Ultra (BPI-M2U) is an open-source hardware
platform using the Allwinner R40 system-on-chip. It supports onboard
Wi-Fi+BT and SATA. The 40-pin GPIO header is pin-compatible with
the Raspberry Pi.
Banana Pi BPI-M2 Berry
The Banana PI BPI-M2 Berry (BPI-M2B) is an open-source hardware
platform using the Allwinner V40 system-on-chip and supporting
onboard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Banana Pi BPI-M2 Magic
The Banana PI BPI-M2 Magic (BPI-M2M) is a single-board computer
designed for internet-of-things applications and using the Allwinner
R16 system on a chip.
Banana Pi BPI-M3
The Banana Pi M3 is an open-source hardware platform. An octa-core
version of Banana Pi, it supports onboard Wi-Fi and SATA and can run
Android 5.1.1, Debian, Ubuntu, Raspberry Pi and other operating
systems.
Banana Pi BPI-M4
The Banana Pi BPI-M4 uses the Realtek RTD1395 system on a chip. It
has 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB eMMC, onboard Wi-Fi for 802.11b/g/n/ac
and BT 4.2.
Banana Pi BPI-F2
The Banana Pi BPI-F2 uses the Freescale i.MX6 system on a chip for
the first time.
Banana Pi BPI-P2 Zero
The Banana Pi BPI-P2 Zero is a low-power single-board computer with
an Allwinner quad-core SoC at 1.2 GHz, 512 MB of DDR3 SDRAM,
USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and mini HDMI.
Banana Pi BPI-S64 core
The Banana Pi BPI-S64 core uses the Actions S700 system on a chip.
Banana Pi BPI-R1
The Banana Pi R1 is a 300Mbit/s Wireless 802.11n router with wired
and wireless network connections which is designed for home
networking. With 2T2R MIMO technology and two detachable
antennas, the R1 is a dual-core system that runs with Android 4.2.2.
Banana Pi BPI-R2
The Banana PI BPI-R2 is an integrated multimedia network router
which can be used for wireless home entertainment and automation.
Integrating a quad-code ARM Cortex-A7 MPcore operating up to 1.3
GHz, the router supports a variety of peripherals.
Banana Pi BPI-R64
The Banana PI BPI-R64 is a router-based development board which
can run on a variety of open-source operating systems, including
OpenWRT and Linux.
Banana Pi BPI-W2
The BPI-W2 router has a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 MPcore
operating up to 1.5 GHz. Its GPIO is compatible with the Raspberry Pi
3.
Banana Pi BPI-D1
The BPI-D1 is a small open-source development board with a built-in
HD mini-camera. Able to be run from an external battery, it also has an
audio sensor, microphone, CPU, GPIO, and Wi-Fi.
Banana Pi BPI-G1
Banana Pi-G1 is an integrated IEEE 802.11 b/g/n (Wi-Fi wireless
network), IEEE 802.15.4 (Zigbee), IEEE 802.11-2007 Standard
(Bluetooth Low Energy 4.0) development board. All three wireless
protocols can be used together. Wi-Fi uses TI CC3200, an ARM
Cortex-M4 wireless SOC, internally-integrated TCP/IP protocol stack.
This allows simple connection to the Internet using the BSD socket.
The Zigbee uses TI CC2530, which integrates wireless capabilities and
enhanced 8051 core SOC. Bluetooth 4.0 (BLE) uses TI CC2540/1, an
integrated BLE stack and enhanced 8051-core, low-power wireless
SOC.
Banana Pi Pro
The Banana Pi Pro is a credit card-sized, low-power single-board
computer.
Software
Android 4.2.2 & 4.4 for Banana Pi (Linux kernel 3.4.39+, 4.4 doesn't
support Wi-Fi and has many bugs, 4.2.2 doesn't support all apps in
Korea)

 Arch Linux for Banana Pi (Linux kernel 3.4.103; 2014-12-26)

 Armbian stable, with more kernel options, Debian or Ubuntu
userland (3.4.113, 4.9.7, 4.11.0; 5.5.2017)
 Bananian Linux Archived 2014-08-22 at the Wayback
Machine (Debian based; Linux kernel 3.4.111; 2016-04-23)
 CentOS 7
 Fedora for Banana Pi (Linux kernel 3.4.103; 2014-12-26)
 Kali Linux for Banana Pi (Linux kernel 3.4.103)
 Kano for Banana Pi (Linux kernel 3.4.103)
 NetBSD
 OpenMediaVault
 OpenWrt
 openSUSE for Banana Pi (openSUSE v1412; Linux kernel 3.4.103;
2014-12-26)
 Raspbian for Banana Pi (Linux kernel 3.4.103; 2014-12-26)
 ROKOS for Banana Pi (Linux kernel 3.4.103; 2014-12-26)
 Scratch for Banana Pi (Boot to Scratch directly) (Linux kernel
3.4.103)

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