From the course: Learning Arduino: Foundations

What is an Arduino?

- [Instructor] An Arduino consists of both a physical programmable circuit board, which is called a microcontroller, and a software that we use to write the code that will be uploaded to the board. The Arduino software is called the IDE, or Integrated Development Environment, and it runs on your computer. An Arduino is a microcontroller. A microcontroller is a computer chip with a minimal processing power that is typically designed for automatic control of external devices. The Arduino senses the environment by receiving inputs from sensors like light and temperature sensors, and changes its output to control LED, motors, displays, and other devices. You can tell your Arduino what to do by sending a set of instructions to the board, through a code, using the Arduino programming language and the Arduino software, IDE. The Arduino board comes in the different styles. To see the different types of our Arduino board, you can check their website. Each Arduino board has different capability depending on your project. You can see that there is an entry level and some with advanced features. Here are the two types of Arduino boards that we'll be using and referring during the course: Arduino Uno and Arduino Mega. You can also check more information about Arduino using the website by clicking on What's Arduino and then navigate through.

Contents