Tick
Footballguy
My boy turns 12 this week, and I got him an Arduino for his birthday. I decided to get the Arduino instead of a Raspberry Pi based on reading some of the differences between the two online. Raspberry Pi has more power and is more suited to connecting to the internet, but Arduino is better with analog inputs, sounds easier to get started with, and is a bit more robust in its programming (don't have to shut down - just power off anytime).
I picked out an Arduino Uno, which seems to be the typical entry-level unit. There are some that are smaller, one that sews into clothing (sounds cool, but nobody seems to have done anything with it other than turn signal jackets for biking), some with more I/O... but I wanted the one that was used most so we can leverage what others have done easily.
My brother-in-law sent a startup sensor kit since this isn't for a specific project - from what I've read online, it sounds like you can get cheaper and higher quality components than a startup kit, but we wanted some bits to play around with. He also sent an introduction book - my son claims to have read it in the past day, but I think he skimmed. I'm working my way through it now.
I'm planning for the two of us to take a free online course as well.
I imagine we'll get a motor control shield - something like this from Adafruit since my son is most interested in making things move. I expect that he'll reluctantly do some learning projects while really wanting to jump straight to something like this tank project.
Have others used these much? Any suggestions on where to buy add-ons? Ideas on projects?
I picked out an Arduino Uno, which seems to be the typical entry-level unit. There are some that are smaller, one that sews into clothing (sounds cool, but nobody seems to have done anything with it other than turn signal jackets for biking), some with more I/O... but I wanted the one that was used most so we can leverage what others have done easily.
My brother-in-law sent a startup sensor kit since this isn't for a specific project - from what I've read online, it sounds like you can get cheaper and higher quality components than a startup kit, but we wanted some bits to play around with. He also sent an introduction book - my son claims to have read it in the past day, but I think he skimmed. I'm working my way through it now.
I'm planning for the two of us to take a free online course as well.
I imagine we'll get a motor control shield - something like this from Adafruit since my son is most interested in making things move. I expect that he'll reluctantly do some learning projects while really wanting to jump straight to something like this tank project.
Have others used these much? Any suggestions on where to buy add-ons? Ideas on projects?
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NTTAWWT!!! 
