Practical Arduino: Cool Projects for Open Source Hardware (Technology in Action) [Paperback]

Before I talk about the book - here's a primer.

What's Arduino?
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Arduino is an example of embedded computing, done cheaply and without the severe complexity. Trust me, it's great because it appeals to engineers and non-engineers too. Arduino technology is made understandable without a Himalayan-sized technical challenge. Engineers use it. Computer programmers use it. Creative people can use it.

Arduino is available in several different forms of circuit board, each offering a range of capacities and physical sizes. At the heart of each board is a single-chip computer, which is capable of "lightweight" processing tasks that you design.

What can you do with it?
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As an evangelist of Arduino, most of my efforts are consumed in trying to get my audience to think about physical applications of this technology. Of the people that have heard of Arduino, many of them just don't know what's possible or how to use it. Well, if you're not from an engineering or computing background, you can be forgiven - we're a strange breed of imaginative thinkers!

I call Arduino "the next Meccano or Lego set" because that's the way you should think about it - a kit of electronic parts without a specification of the thing you want to build. You decide what to build and how to build it using the parts.

About the book.
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This book helps to bridge the "application gap" and I believe it is one of the best on the market right now. It provides worked examples of electronic circuits (hardware) and code (software) that together make an application of Arduino. It is a great source of technical inspiration, and more importantly, explanation, which you don't always get from looking at examples on the web.

The first chapter provides the basics of electronics theory, terminology and hardware - enough to get started and understand what's going on.

The next fourteen chapters are each dedicated to a new idea that is developed into something useful involving an Arduino board. These include a virtual USB keyboard, time-lapse camera controller, touch control panel, online (web enabled) thermometer, weather station receiver, speech synthesis, various projects with sensors and RFID, plus an interesting use of data from an engine management unit.

The final chapter talks about techniques for driving the interface electronics - the nuts and bolts that bridge between the application circuitry and the Arduino board itself. Some very useful, practical advice is presented here.

Your next challenge is to see how portions of these applications could be re-used in your own ideas.

Why just 4 stars? Once interested in Arduino, you'd want more than 14 examples. But, I see there is another volume on its way soon.

Happy reading.

This book follows on from the basic ' hello world' starter books. The projects are well thought out and are explained very clearly. It is unlikely anyone would complete all the projects , but the concepts would be useful in other projects, and based on this I would happily give this book 5 stars, so why only 3 ? Well I have purchased several other 'technology in action' books and have found them all excellent both in content and in quality ... .now here is the big problem with this one ,I was extremely disappointed with the paper used which is terrible, more like a cheap novel not a £20 technical book, they are yellowish not white and would tear very easily, also the photos are almost totally unreadable. When I compare this book with the others in this series there is no comparison. Perhaps the publishers are now cutting too many corners.

As another reviewer says, some of the projects appear to be bit more specific than is useful.

Fortunately, you can look at the code, schematics and an overview on the book's website, [...] which also has some good examples of how people have extended what's in the book. Perhaps those projects are not so specific...

I've given it three stars because relatively few of the projects are what I'm interested in doing, but have a look and decide for yourself.