Planet Arduino

Today’s makers have access to the most advanced materials, resources, and support in history, and it’s improving all the time. The downside is that finding the right software can sometimes feel confusing and overwhelming. There are seemingly endless options, all with different attributes and advantages.

In this article, we’re here to help make things easier. We’ll walk you through the best software for makers at each experience level — beginner, intermediate, and expert — and help you identify the right software for your needs.

The best maker software for each experience level

Beginner-level software

If you’re new to the world of making, you’ll likely have some specific needs and requirements that won’t apply to more experienced folks.

For example, you’ll want software that’s forgiving and beginner-friendly, that comes with more opportunities to learn the basics, and is easy enough that you won’t be discouraged from making.

With that in mind, here are our top picks for the best beginner-level maker software.

Arduino IDE

Arduino is one of the most well-established and well-known platforms for makers of all levels. Arduino’s microcontrollers allow you to program projects with your own custom code, creating gadgets that work exactly the way you want them to.

If you’re new to the game, you’ll want to start with a microcontroller that’s suitable for beginners. The Arduino IDE is perfect for this: it’s free, user-friendly, and leverages a simplified version of the C/C++ programming languages so you can learn the basics in a fun and rewarding way.

TinkerCAD

Since it first came onto the scene in 2011, TinkerCAD has been a great choice for beginners looking to get started with making their own projects.

As a CAD (computer-aided design) software, TinkerCAD is a fantastic tool for designers and can be used to create models for 3D printing. 

Due to its beginner-friendly nature, TinkerCAD is often used in schools to help learners get to grips with basic coding and design, building their own elementary tech projects. It’s also completely free of charge.

The advantage of using TinkerCAD is that it also contains a simple circuit designer and visual code tool useful to generate the code for Arduino boards.

Intermediate-level software 

Once you’ve learned the basics of making, you’ll likely be craving some more challenging and stimulating projects.

Taking your coding skills to the next level requires more sophisticated software, allowing you to be more adventurous and ambitious with your plans. The good news is that there is plenty of software out there for intermediate makers. Let’s take a look at some examples.

Python

Python is one of the most well-known programming languages out there, and it’s compatible with most maker-friendly platforms and microcontrollers.

Python works well with Arduino hardware, and is especially well-suited for projects that use sensors and other components. You don’t need to be a coding wizard to start using Python in this way, but you will need some familiarity and experience.

Check out this project — a Nicla Vision-based fire detector built by Arduino user Shakhizat Nurgaliyev using Python. Shakhizat created an entirely generated dataset and then trained a model on that data to detect fires.

MicroPython

MicroPython is an experimental, lean, and lightweight implementation of the programming language Python, and it’s designed specifically to be used with microcontrollers.

This makes it ideal for use with Arduino projects, and it works especially well with those that use sensors and similar components. MicroPython does require a base of coding knowledge to use, but you don’t need to be an expert.

Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code, often abbreviated as VS Code, is an open-source editor created by Microsoft that is compatible with Windows, Linux, and macOS. 

It offers a range of features such as debugging support, syntax highlighting, smart code completion, snippets, code refactoring, and integrated Git functionality. Visual Studio Code can be used to develop code for Arduino boards, and, by using the available extensions, you can upload code directly to the Arduino boards.

Node-RED

Node-RED is built to bring hardware devices, software, and online services together, creating ever more interesting and advanced projects.

It works especially well with IoT projects — and is a great choice if you want to integrate platforms like Arduino with other devices to build your own custom designs for use in your home.

Node-RED’s browser-based editor and built-in library make it a powerful tool for those with some coding experience to make new projects.

Arduino’s Portenta X8 can host a Node-RED instance running it on a container, making it easy to connect and integrate several different services, either locally or online with Arduino Cloud or third-party software. 

In this project, David Beamonte used Node-RED and Arduino Cloud, to integrate a TP-Link smart Wi-Fi plug with other projects. This way, they were able to link multiple smart home devices together and control them from one central hub.

Expert-level software

Are you a true veteran of making and coding? Fluent in more programming languages than you can remember, with a host of impressive projects under your belt and a slot at next year’s Maker Faire?

If so, you have the skills to achieve some truly exciting things. Let’s take a look at the software available for expert-level makers.

MATLAB

MATLAB is an advanced piece of software that works well with Arduino hardware and similar products. 

It’s especially useful when building projects that require data analysis and complex, large-scale computations. Proficiency in MATLAB can lead to some truly impressive creations, but it takes a solid amount of experience and skill to realize those results.

Arduino users MadhuGovindarajan and ssalunkhe used MATLAB to build their very own lane-following rover. The project used the rover from Arduino’s Engineering Kit, combined with an algorithm that allows the rover to stay within a designated lane while driving.

The Arduino Engineering kit contains three different projects that involve physical hardware and MATLAB/Simulink to create amazing results. 

C/C++ IDEs

The programming languages C and C++ have been around for decades, underpinning the worlds of computer science and software engineering.

If you have a solid base of coding ability, you can use C/C++ development environments to program Arduino boards and create ever more advanced and impressive projects.

Other resources

GitHub

Do you want to share your code with your mates, or with the world? 

If so, GitHub is the perfect place to do it. It’s an open-source community with multiple contributors and lots of integrations with developer-oriented software. 

Inside, you’ll find more than 300 million projects, known as repos. Makers use the platform to share their work, but it can also be useful to take a look and draw inspiration from the trending repositories.

AI/ML

AI is making headlines all over the world, but it extends far beyond ChatGPT.

Makers today have access to a wealth of fantastic tools to speed up work, correct errors, and document your shiny new code. Check out GitHub copilot and OpenAI Codex to get started.

Using software with Arduino

By combining the right software tools with Arduino’s products, you have the perfect recipe for your next awesome project.

If you want to gain inspiration, or share your own work with our community, check out the Arduino Project Hub where you can search for projects and filter by type and difficulty level.

The post The best maker software by experience level appeared first on Arduino Blog.

With so many students attending class virtually these days, how can you give kids — or adults — some hands on experience with electronics projects? [Ben Finio] says you can by moving your lab to the virtual world using — of all things — Tinkercad. [Ben] should know something about a classroom since he is a lecturer at Cornell.

Of course, you could do this trick with any online simulator, but Tinkercad is nice because it is easy to use, looks real, and doesn’t cost the students a dime. [Ben] mentions there are some scenarios where it is especially useful like large classes or online classes. There are probably some cases where it doesn’t make sense, like teaching RF design, for example. Even then, maybe you just need a different tool.

It would be something else if Tinkercad would add some features to support this use case. Imagine an instructor being able to peek at a student’s circuit or modify it without having to screen share to the whole class. Or perhaps provide a connector to connect one student’s outputs to another student’s inputs.

We couldn’t help but think you could do some more hardcore electronics using our favorite Falstad simulator. It doesn’t have the realistic look, but it can simulate a lot of interesting circuits. After all, we’ve long been a fan of project-based learning.

[Ash] built Moo-Bot, a robot cow scarecrow to enter the competition at a local scarecrow festival. We’re not sure if Moo-bot will win the competition, but it sure is a winning hack for us. [Ash]’s blog is peppered with delightful prose and tons of pictures, making this an easy to build project for anyone with access to basic carpentry and electronics tools. One of the festival’s theme was “Out of this World” for space and sci-fi scarecrows. When [Ash] heard his 3-year old son sing “hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle…”, he immediately thought of building a cow jumping over the moon scarecrow. And since he had not seen any interactive scarecrows at earlier festivals, he decided to give his jumping cow a lively character.

Construction of the Moo-Bot is broken up in to three parts. The skeleton is built from lumber slabs and planks. The insides are then gutted with all of the electronics. Finally, the whole cow is skinned using sheet metal and finished off with greebles to add detailing such as ears, legs, spots and nostrils. And since it is installed in the open, its skin also doubles up to help Moo-bot stay dry on the insides when it rains. To make Moo-Bot easy to transport from barn to launchpad, it’s broken up in to three modules — the body, the head and the mounting post with the moon.

Moo-Bot has an Arduino brain which wakes up when the push button on its mouth is pressed. Its two OLED screen eyes open up, and the MP3 player sends bovine sounding audio clips to a large sound box. The Arduino also triggers some lights around the Moon. Juice for running the whole show comes from a bank of eight, large type “D” cells wired to provide 6 V — enough to keep Moo-Bot fed for at least a couple of months.

Check out the video after the break to hear Moo-bot tell some cow jokes – it’s pretty funny. We’re rooting for it to win the competition — Go Moo-bot.

If you’re hungry for more scarecrows, this isn’t the first we’ve seen.

Filed under: Arduino Hacks, robots hacks

If you’ve done 3D printing, you’ve probably at least heard of Tinkercad. This popular CAD package runs in your browser and was rescued from oblivion by Autodesk a few years ago. [Chuck] recently did a video about a new Tinkercad feature: building and simulating virtual Arduino circuits. You can watch it below.

There are a variety of components you can add to your design. You’ll find an integrated code editor and a debugger. You can even get to the serial monitor, all in your browser with no actual Arduino hardware. You can also build simple circuits that don’t use an Arduino, although the component selection is somewhat limited.

This could be great for teaching Arduino in classrooms or when you want to do some development in a hotel room. The layout is very visual, so if you are accustomed to reading schematics, you may not appreciate the style. In addition, the selection of components is somewhat limited (including only supporting the Arduino UNO, as far as we could tell). So for educational purposes, it is great. For breadboarding your next great Arduino-powered robot, maybe not so much.

If you remember Circuits123 (or circuits.io), this is the same underlying technology. They’ve just integrated it with Tinkercad. However, there doesn’t seem to be any real integration between the two other than they are on the same web page now. Perhaps in the future, they’ll let you drop components on the circuit that also show up in the 3D design (or, at least, with sockets or holders for those components).

However, having a simulated Arduino with a debugger could come in handy even if you don’t care about the circuit simulations. If you really want to do circuit simulation, it is hard to go wrong with LTSpice. If you really want it to be in your browser, there’s always Falstad.

Filed under: Arduino Hacks

[gocivici] threatened us with a tutorial on positional astronomy when we started reading his tutorial on a Arduino Powered Star Pointer and he delivered. We’d pick him to help us take the One Ring to Mordor; we’d never get lost and his threat-delivery-rate makes him less likely to pull a Boromir.

As we mentioned he starts off with a really succinct and well written tutorial on celestial coordinates that antiquity would have killed to have. If we were writing a bit of code to do our own positional astronomy system, this is the tab we’d have open. Incidentally, that’s exactly what he encourages those who have followed the tutorial to do.

The star pointer itself is a high powered green laser pointer (battery powered), 3D printed parts, and an amalgam of fourteen dollars of Chinese tech cruft. The project uses two Arduino clones to process serial commands and manage two 28byj-48 stepper motors. The 2nd Arduino clone was purely to supplement the digital pins of the first; we paused a bit at that, but then we realized that import arduinos have gotten so cheap they probably are more affordable than an I2C breakout board or stepper driver these days. The body was designed with a mixture of Tinkercad and something we’d not heard of, OpenJsCAD.

Once it’s all assembled and tested the only thing left to do is go outside with your contraption. After making sure that you’ve followed all the local regulations for not pointing lasers at airplanes, point the laser at the north star. After that you can plug in any star coordinate and the laser will swing towards it and track its location in the sky. Pretty cool.

Filed under: Arduino Hacks, cnc hacks, news, solar hacks