The wide world of engineering, electronics design, robotics, and everything in between can be a scary place to dip your toes into. For an absolute beginner, it’s hard to find a place where you can start your journey.
In your search, you’ll probably come across Arduino, which offers plenty of beginner-friendly projects. In the spirit of that, this Intro to Arduino Shield offers one of the best entry points I’ve seen into the maker sphere.
The kit plugs into an Arduino Uno or similar and includes a button, light sensor, and RGB LED. You can control the LED with an analog (sensor) or digital (button) input. By following along with a video series on the seller’s YouTube channel, and using slides from their GitHub, you’ll learn to solder surface mount and through-hole computers as you build the shield.
Once built, you’ll learn to how to blink your first LED and even how to make it fade as well. The learning materials also cover buttons, sensor input, and non-blocking code.
All said and done, you’ll have a snazzy night light when you’re finished, but the real takeaway here is the fact that you’ll learn soldering and five core programming concepts that you can take into your future projects!
