Like most kids, I had an electronics kit that taught the basics; You could build something more advanced than a radio or a Morse code device. Suffice it to say that the fun didn’t last long when you built all 5 projects. These days, however, modern electronics hardware kits are affordable and the possibilities are endless—all thanks to the wonders of microcontrollers.
Microcontrollers are basically primitive computers — thanks to them, hardware hacking has never been better as it allows complex electronic circuits to be programmed in simple embedded software. These platforms are created, developed, and thriving communities are built around them. In fact, now is the best time to live if you have little interest in electronics.
Let’s take a look at the 5 most popular kits.
Arduino
The original Arduino was the brainchild of some Italian students tired of expensive and fragmented development kits and the lack of standardized software to program them. They wanted to bring electronics hacking and microcontrollers to the world and used an existing open source programming and development system called Wiring to make that dream come true. The Arduino project itself remains completely open source, which means you can download plans for the board and build it from standard components; this has actually resulted in several Arduino clones that are slightly cheaper.
Like most development boards featured here, it has a range of input and output connections, both digital and analog, allowing users to connect any kind of sensors and actuators (such as motors) in an endless range of devices; combined with custom logic. Arduino works alone or in conjunction with a computer or other devices — it supports a number of communication protocols.
You can also purchase specially shaped add-ons known as «shields» that sit on top of the main Arduino board, duplicating pins and adding additional functionality such as the Xbee Wi-Fi chip.
I have an Arduino Uno and have written some tutorials here to get you started and also take a look at the Arduino starter kit which contain various electronic components as well as other essentials. At some point, I might even try doing an LED cube like the one below, so keep an eye out for that.
LilyPad Arduino
Designed specifically for wearable e-textile projects, the LilyPad is a tiny, flat, round version of the Arduino — yet fully compatible. Connections and pins are reduced, but otherwise the basic functionality is fairly similar. If you’ve developed and tested your project on a regular Arduino and now want to move on to garment embedding, this is your best bet.
