Introduction to Arduino

AREA OF SCIENCE

Computer Science

Electricity & Electronics

KEY CONCEPTS

Programming, circuits, algorithmic thinking

This lesson plan will introduce your students to physical computing: the process of building circuits and programming a microcontroller (an Arduino UNO®) to interact with them. The lesson is broken into seven activities that will walk your students through the basics of setting up the Arduino and interacting with circuit parts like LEDs, buttons, and resistors. This introductory material will help prepare your students for more advanced Arduino projects.

To complete the activities in this lesson, each group of students will need following materials.

Electronics Kit for Arduino, available from our partner Home Science Tools®
Windows or Mac computer. See this page if you have a Chromebook. Your computer will need:
- Access to the Arduino IDE, either installed local version or web-based editor (note that Chromebooks can only use the web version). Watch this video for a comparison of the two options.
- USB port. The Science Buddies kit comes with a USB-A to B cable. The "B" end plugs into the Arduino and the "A" end plugs into your computer. You will need an adapter or different cable if your computer only has USB-C ports. Watch this video to learn about the different types of cables and adapters.

This section contains a quick review for teachers of the science and concepts covered in this lesson. The Arduino UNO (Figure 1) is a microcontroller board that is widely used in the hobbyist, maker, and educational communities. It allows people with no formal engineering training to get started with their own electronics and robotics projects. It is designed to make prototyping electronics projects easy. You can quickly take apart your project, build a new circuit, and upload a new program.