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Appendix: BreadBoard Power and Arduino Primer 329

regulators take a high-input voltage and make it lower. The LM7805 5V regulator
(SparkFun COM-00107) is popular and converts an 8V to 15V input to a 5V output
(see an example at http://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Labs/Breadboard). Step-up regulators
do the opposite: They take a low voltage and make it higher. These are a bit more
involved to use, so it’s best to go with a ready-made module like SparkFun’s
PRT-08999, which can take in 1V to 4V and output 5V. (For an example of how to
work with boost regulators, see www.ladyada.net/make/mintyboost/process.html.)

Arduino Primer

An Arduino is like a mini-computer that acts as the brains for your project once you
get past just wanting to turn something on and off. Why Arduino? A handful of other
development boards out there do basically the same thing. They have a microcontroller
(mini-computer) on board, places to plug in stuff, and a way to get power onboard.
These include MIT’s Handyboard, Phidgets, the Make Controller, and others. We work
with Arduino in this book for several reasons:

• Price At $30 per board and free software to run it, you can get up and
running without making a huge investment.

• Compatibility It works on Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux systems.
• Convenience The board is very flexible and can be used to control motors,
blink LEDs, and do so many other things that I won’t even try to go through
them here. An Arduino can be the backbone of any project that requires more
smarts than a simple switch.
• Ongoing support and development The hardware and software are both
open source and extensible, which means that you or anyone else can make
improvements that might be folded into later generations of the Arduino. The
Arduino system is very popular and has sold more than 150,000 modules, so
it has extensive online documentation, sample code, help forums, sample
projects, and so on to get you going and keep you going. The Arduino team
members use and teach the platform themselves, so they are committed to
constant improvements.

Make the Arduino Play Nice with Your Computer

There are two parts to the Arduino system:

• The Arduino board you hold in your hand (see Figure A-2)