What is Arduino?

In last years’ the use of Arduino increases exponentially due to its readability and easiness. But the
point to think is whether the use of Arduino is in favor of engineers or not. There are some
advantages and disadvantages of using Arduino.
Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software.
Arduino boards are able to read inputs - light on a sensor, a finger on a button, or a Twitter message -
and turn it into an output - activating a motor, turning on an LED, publishing something online. You
can tell your board what to do by sending a set of instructions to the microcontroller on the board.
To do so you use the Arduino programming language (based on Wiring), and the Arduino Software
(IDE), based on Processing.
Over the years Arduino has been the brain of thousands of projects, from everyday objects to
complex scientific instruments. A worldwide community of makers - students, hobbyists, artists,
programmers, and professionals - has gathered around this open-source platform, their contributions
have added up to an incredible amount of accessible knowledge that can be of great help to novices
and experts alike.
Arduino was born at the Ivrea Interaction Design Institute as an easy tool for fast prototyping, aimed
at students without a background in electronics and programming. As soon as it reached a wider
community, the Arduino board started changing to adapt to new needs and challenges,
differentiating its offer from simple 8-bit boards to products for IoT applications, wearable, 3D
printing, and embedded environments. All Arduino boards are completely open-source, empowering
users to build them independently and eventually adapt them to their particular needs. The
software, too, is open-source, and it is growing through the contributions of users worldwide.
Why Arduino?
Thanks to its simple and accessible user experience, Arduino has been used in thousands of different
projects and applications. The Arduino software is easy-to-use for beginners, yet flexible enough for
advanced users. It runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux. Teachers and students use it to build low cost
scientific instruments, to prove chemistry and physics principles, or to get started with programming
and robotics. Designers and architects build interactive prototypes, musicians and artists use it for
installations and to experiment with new musical instruments. Makers, of course, use it to build
many of the projects exhibited at the Maker Faire, for example. Arduino is a key tool to learn new
things. Anyone - children, hobbyists, artists, programmers - can start tinkering just following the step
by step instructions of a kit, or sharing ideas online with other members of the Arduino community.
There are many other microcontrollers and microcontroller platforms available for physical
computing. Parallax Basic Stamp, Netmedia's BX-24, Phidgets, MIT's Handyboard, and many others
offer similar functionality. All of these tools take the messy details of microcontroller programming
and wrap it up in an easy-to-use package. Arduino also simplifies the process of working with
microcontrollers, but it offers some advantage for teachers, students, and interested amateurs over
other systems:
Inexpensive - Arduino boards are relatively inexpensive compared to other microcontroller platforms.
The least expensive version of the Arduino module can be assembled by hand, and even the pre-
assembled Arduino modules cost less than $50
Cross-platform - The Arduino Software (IDE) runs on Windows, Macintosh OSX, and Linux operating
systems. Most microcontroller systems are limited to Windows.
Simple, clear programming environment - The Arduino Software (IDE) is easy-to-use for beginners,
yet flexible enough for advanced users to take advantage of as well. For teachers, it's conveniently
based on the Processing programming environment, so students learning to program in that
environment will be familiar with how the Arduino IDE works.
Open source and extensible software - The Arduino software is published as open source tools,
available for extension by experienced programmers. The language can be expanded through C++
libraries, and people wanting to understand the technical details can make the leap from Arduino to
the AVR C programming language on which it's based. Similarly, you can add AVR-C code directly into
your Arduino programs if you want to.
Open source and extensible hardware - The plans of the Arduino boards are published under a
Creative Commons license, so experienced circuit designers can make their own version of the
module, extending it and improving it. Even relatively inexperienced users can build the breadboard
version of the module in order to understand how it works and save money.
How do I use Arduino?
See the getting started guide. If you are looking for inspiration you can find a great variety of Tutorials
on Arduino Project Hub.

Abstract
There have been substantial technological advancements over the last decade leading to
development of precise measuring instruments which have increased the accuracy of experimental
results and decreased the time taken during experiments. These measuring instruments are built on
sensors and a robust data acquisition system. These data acquisition systems are often very costly,
experiment specific and based on proprietary softwares leading to limited adoption in most of the
Indian schools/colleges/Universities. Thus, there is a need to develop a robust system which
addresses these issues. The present wok describes the methodology of development of such a
system which can acquire data from sensors and send it to a directly connected or a remote display
device. These have been developed using open source hardware and software tools which are often
low cost and capable to support wireless acquisition of data. We are using Arduino microcontroller
board, mainly ‘Mega ADK’, which provides interface between sensors and display devices. Further,
wireless capability of acquiring/sending data through internet has been added to the system through
an ‘Ethernet shield’, which has been integrated to Arduino Mega ADK. Some of the science
experiments showing remote data acquisition on any device which has an access to internet have
been discussed. The developed experiments show the versatility and robust nature of the system.

Applications of arduino
The applications of the Arduino board are mainly involved in the embedded real-time system based
projects that include, industrial appliance control, intensity controlling of street lights, obstacle
avoidance, electric appliance control, home automation, underground cable fault detection, solar
street light, etc

ract—
Till date, manual routine tools and techniques are usedt o p e r f o r m v a r i o u s e x p e r i m e n t a l
p r o c e d u r e s i n m o s t o f t h e s c i e n c e l a b o r a t o r i e s i n o u r c o u n t r y. T h e m a n u a l
t o o l s a r e cumbersome whereas the automated ones are costly. It does notenthuse young
researchers towards the science laboratories. T h e r e i s a n e e d t o d e v e l o p
a p p l i c a ti o n s w h i c h c a n b e e a s i l y i n t e g r a t e d , t a i l o r e d i n s c h o o l a n d
u n d e r g r a d u a t e l e v e l laboratories and are economical at the same time. Equipmentsw i t h
a d v a n c e d t e c h n o l o g i e s a r e a v a i l a b l e b u t t h e y a r e uneconomical and have
complicated working principle with a black box approach. The present work describes
development of portable tools and applications which are user-friendly and canbe interfaced with
different mobile platforms like android. This isb e i n g i m p l e m e n t e d u s i n g o p e n - s o u r c e
p h y s i c a l c o m p u ti n g p l a tf o r m b a s e d o n a s i m p l e m i c r o c o n t r o l l e r b o a r d a n d
a development environment for writing software for the board. na r d u i n o m i c r o c o n t r o l l e r
b o a r d w i t h ! " # i s b e i n g u s e d f o r interfacing different sensors for measuring required
parametersd u r i n g v a r i o u s e x p e r i m e n t s . T h e s e s e n s o r s i n c l u d e b u t n o t l i m i t e d
t o l i g h t , s o u n d , t e m p e r a t u r e , s a l i n i t y e t c . $ o b u s t application soft wares are being
developed using eclipse I"E in%ava and other programming languages. These tools will inspireyoung
researchers towards science and facilitate development of a d v a n c e l o w c o s t e q u i p m e n t s
m a k i n g l i f e e a s i e r f o r I n d i a n society