The Parts
This page includes information about the parts that generally make up an Arduino setup. Use the menu on the right to navigate to the sections you need.
Note: The language and explanations here are my own and might sound different than other websites, but hopefully, it gets you where you need to go to at least start a project.
1. Jumper Wires
These are the things that make things look like movie bombs but really just move electricity from one thing to another.
Wire color DOES NOT matter. However, I tend to always use red wires for the positive charge and black or blue for the negative charge (ground).
Male-to-Male Wires
Male-to-male wires are the most common due to Arduino circuit boards and breadboards having holes.
Female-to-Female Wires
Female-to-female wires help connect wires with a male end and to sensors and components.
Female-to-Male Wires
Female-to-male wires are great for connecting directly from the circuit board to a sensor or component.
2. Breadboard
The plastic white thing with the holes.
The breadboards that come in kits have 4 sections.
Here's what it looks like inside:
Image credit: Sparkfun
The Power Rails
On the sides of most breadboards, there are two long metal "rails" under the holes and are marked with a red positive line and blue negative (ground) line.
Think of these like a power strip or splitter. It makes it so you can have one wire of positive charge going into the red positive rail and all wires connected to it become positive charge wires to provide electricity to components. A single ground or negative charge wire can be connected to the blue negative line to serve as the needed completed circuit for multiple ground wires.
Electrical Contact Strips
The other metal strips run perpendicular to the power rails, separated by a space in the center. These connect power, ground, and input/output wires to components. Components usually have metal spokes that you put in to these, then connect wires on the same strip to connect them. This makes it so you aren't needing to solder the wires or have components hanging.
3. Circuit Board
This is the actual "Arduino" and the "computer" that the code is stored and run on.
The student kits and many lower-priced starter kits will have Arduino UNOs, but my favorite is Arduino MEGA because there are WAY more i/o (input/output) pins (connections/holes) than the UNO.
Each circuit board has a connection for:
External Power connection (from wall outlet)
Serial USB (this also provides some power) (from computer's USB port)
3.3V and 5V positive charge pins
Ground (GND) pins
Analog i/o pins (start with A)
Digital i/0 pins (number only)
4. Components
There are a ton of components out there from sensors to LED lights, motors, buzzers, etc. They are usually thought as either input or output components with input components usually being a sensor or something a user interacts with.
5. Resistors
Not all components can handle or use the amount of energy coming from the Arduino, so resistors are used to get the right amount of charge to a component.
Although they look almost identical, the color bands on the resistors represent numbers and amount of resistance. Most components will tell you what resistors to use.
Here is a chart:
Note: Some of these colors are hard to read or even know the direction to read them. Usually, there is a gap on the RIGHT side. For starter kits, generally, the two black lines (a multiple of 100) are on the left end.
6. Serial Connection Cord (USB 2.0)
This is the cord you connect the Arduino circuit board to the computer to download Arduino code to the circuit board and also provides enough power to run small setups.
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