Maik Schmidt - Arduino: A Quick-Start Guide, 2nd Edition

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Susannah Davidson Pfalzer was the editor of the first edition of this book.When planning the second edition, I hadnt forgotten how difficult it was towrite the first one, but I also remembered how great it was to work with her.Again, she turned this endeavor into a real pleasure. Thank you very much!

This is not the first book Ive written for the Pragmatic Bookshelf, so I knewalready how professional and nice everyone on the team is. Still, they get evenbetter every time, and Id like to thank everyone for making this book happen.

This book would not have been possible without the stunning work of the wholeArduino team. Thank you so much for creating Arduino!

A big thank you goes to all the people who contributed material to this book:Christian Rattat took all the books photos, Kaan Karaca created the Blaminatrsdisplay, and Kassandra Perch improved the JavaScript code in the Creating YourOwn Universal Remote Control chapter.

I created all circuit diagrams with Fritzing, and Id like to thankthe Fritzing team for making such a great tool available for free.

For the games I developed for this book, I needed some artwork, and Ive foundamazing things on the OpenGameArt website. for my breakout clone. Thank you for putting these into the publicdomain.

The background image of the browser game comes from ESA/Hubble, NASA,Digitized Sky Survey, MPG/ESO (acknowledgment: Davide de Martin). The imageshowing how raster scan works was created by Ian Harvey.

For an author, theres nothing more motivating and valuable than feedback. Idlike to thank my reviewers: Kevin Beam, Jessica Janiuk, Kassandra Perch, MikeRiley, Sam Rose, and Matthew Sullivan. This book is so much better because ofyour insightful comments and suggestions!

Finally, I have to thank my wonderful wife, Tanja, and my adorable son, Mika, forbeing patient and understanding whenever I had to write yet another page.

Welcome to Arduino, and welcome to the exciting world of physical computing!Arduino is an open-source project consisting of both hardware andsoftware. It was originally created to give designers and artists a prototypingplatform for interaction design courses. Today, hobbyists and experts all overthe world use it to create physical computing projects, and you can, too.

Arduino lets you get hands-on again with computers in a way you havent beenable to since the 1980s, when you could build your own computer. And Arduinomakes it easier than ever to develop handcrafted electronics projects rangingfrom prototypes to sophisticated gadgets. Gone are the days when you had tolearn lots of theory about electronics and arcane programming languages beforeyou could even get an LED blinking. You can create your first Arduino project ina few minutes without needing advanced electrical engineering coursework.

In fact, you dont need to know anything about electronics projects to read thisbook, and youll get your hands dirty right from the beginning. Youll not onlylearn how to use some of the most important electronic parts in the first pages,youll also learn how to write the software needed to bring your projects tolife.

This book dispenses with theory and stays hands-on throughout. Ill explain allthe basics you need to build the books projects, and every chapter has atroubleshooting section to help when things go wrong. This book is a quick-startguide that gets you up to speed quickly and enables you to immediately createyour own projects.

If you are interested in electronicsand especially in building your own toys,games, and gadgetsthen this book is for you. Although Arduino is a nicetool for designers and artists, only software developers are able to unleash itsfull power. So, if youve already developed some softwarepreferably withC/C++ or Javathen youll get a lot out of this book.