Arduino For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

A great book for the basics. Sadly, not enough of the right kind of practical info to be of much real use. Try a different book.

I bought a drone for entertainment during the COVID-19 lockdown. As I started learning how to customize the drone, I realized that the foundations of the brains of the drone came from people experimenting with Arduino boards.So, at 48, as a person who picked history as a major in college to avoid math, I decided that I wanted to learn how to code a microcontroller for fun.This book was a perfect place to start. My lack of scientific background was no obstacle. This book starts at the beginning and explains how electricity works, and why an LED has two different sized legs and needs a resister. Not only does the author explain what to do, he does a good job of explaining why. The lessons build on each other in a logical progression.By following each of the lessons in this book sequentially, I feel like I have a good enough handle on what the Arduino can do, and how make it do it, that I can create my own sketches- expanding on the concepts from the book.The early chapters are a great reference to use later on, and I have ended up with a lot of book marks for sections I keep going back to.I would enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone who wants to go from zero to hero with an Arduino kit.

Very good basic book that covers everything a novice would need to know to get started in the world of coding micro controllers. It covers the basics of the Arduino software and hardware, a basic primer on electronics and tools, examples, and multiple resources for learning more and buying Arduino stuff.That said, for me personally, the book was really only a mediocre purchase - I'd rate it 3 stars for me. I've got multiple years professional experience with electronics, and I used to do a lot of programming in Basic, so I already know how to use the tools, the circuitry basics, and the concepts of creating software. And several of the examples the book covers are essentially slightly expanded versions of the tutorials available on the Arduino site.Bottom line - if you're a raw beginner, this would be a great book to start with. If you're rusty with the concepts and haven't touched an Arduino ever (or it's been years), then it might be a good book for a refresher. But if you're already comfortable with electronics and its tools, and/or you're comfortable with the concepts of coding software, you probably won't find much useful outside the resource references.

Interesting technology.

As a retired software developer for 50 yrs, much of it at the OS level on mainframes in assembly language, this book allowed me to very quickly and cheaply evaluate the Arduino and determine it will work for my project before I bought an Arduino and other needed components. However, I would question whether a person without at least some technical / programming experience will be able to follow it.

This book is full of information and easy to follow which is a Blessing for me as a novice. If your interested in Arduino and/or that field and starting out with little or no knowledge, get this book.

Clearly written but I couldn't follow some of the sketch examples.

Included in this book are many reference websites that provide more training and knowledge. I did find some of the descriptions of how the example code works to be a little hard to follow, but once I understood, the discription was very clear. I am very satisified with my purchase of this book.

I was a bit disappointed. It's very basic and doesn't have a huge amount of projects in it, most of the book seems to be a lot of waffle. The examples it gives are just a handful of the code examples that come packaged with the Arduino IDE. There's no challenge in it either, was expecting there to be some exercises or projects that got you thinking on your own. The rest of the book is filler. Don't really need the chapters on the history of Arduino and a big chunk of the second half of the book is just write ups of what other people are using it for without really going into much detail. Must be better beginner books out there. I've ended up just using tutorials from Youtube which are more useful. Wouldn't recommend it.

If you are a complete beginner then this is a good place to start but you will exhaust its possibilities in a very short space of time.

If you are an absolute newbie to Arduino then it may be helpful, if not then its simply a repeat of "Getting Started With Arduino" ISBN 987-0-596-15551-3.Very little info about actual coding or any neat tricks.For instance there is a whole chapter on Soldering....why?Quick you-tube session tells you how to solder.A very, very beginners book

Dreadful book not worth the money, tells you nothing at all.This info is available free elsewhere.

I have just started to use Arduinos and this book is ideal. It is well structured, gives examples of how to write sketches and how the coding works. For someone like me who is not a natural programmer this guide is excellent.