Having explained this to a couple of people recently, I realized that what is very familiar to me may be totally foreign to some of my circle. So, if you’ve never heard of them, I will describe what an Arduino is as well as some related devices.

An Arduino is a type of microcontroller. I’m not going to go into too much detail, but think of a microcontroller as a chip that acts as the brains of many smart electronic devices. Probably some of the more familiar devices would be robots, such as our Roomba vacuuming robot, or a device that works with a remote control. Lots of things have microcontrollers in them. The Arduino and similar devices are hobbyists’ versions of these devices. You can use them to make automatic controls—such as something to water your plants—or build robots.

The Raspberry Pi and similar devices are different. They are called single-board computers. They are literally $35-50 computers, smaller than a deck of cards. They can also be used by hobbyists to build things. While there is some overlap, they usually are appropriate for different applications. That’s all I am going to explain.

One thing these devices have in common is that they work with computer programs, and I have always been interested in computer programming. I have done a little of it over the years, having written a program to calculate child support, created pretty complex macros for Excel spreadsheets and other kinds of fairly simple programs. I will never make it as a Programmer, but programming for me is like crossword puzzles for a lot of people.

The new “toy” I got was an Arduino Starter Kit. It comes with the microcontroller on a circuit board and all sorts of parts to do things like measuring temperature and light, light blinking, making sounds, and a bunch of other things. The kit came with a book of instructions for designing the circuits and writing the programs that control them. Unfortunately, I will have to learn a new programming language in order work this stuff, but that’s part of the point of the kit. While I am spending more time at home helping Janie out, she is indulging yet another geeky whim of mine by encouraging me to get the kit.

I heard a guy on a podcast say recently that it is better to learn this stuff with a project in mind or a problem to solve. In general, I would agree, but I’m still at the stage where I don’t know what I don’t know. So, going through the exercises in this kit will give me an idea about what projects I might want to do. After I get deeper into the Arduino, I’ll move on to the Raspberry Pi, and see what it can do. (When I told Leslie that I was interested in the Raspberry Pi, she asked in all seriousness “You’re going to make a raspberry pie?” Sorry, Leslie, that will come later.) My interest in these devices was rekindled after getting involved in ham radio, because I learned that there were several applications that could be used in that hobby. As I learn about their capabilities, I can decide what problems I want to solve it radio or one of my other hobbies.

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