Arduino Starter Kit for Beginner K010007 [Italian Projects Book]

Sasquatch paid full price for this.I'm 35, but I wish I had this at one or both of two times in my life: - growing up- when I was getting my EE degreeThis set does a great job at introducing everything you need for an introduction to electrical components and programming. This isn't certain to put you or your kid on a path to a high earning job as an electrical engineer, but it's more likely to do so than a video game.Instruction booklet is understandable for real humans, but some challenges may be had dealing with versioning of code/firmware/etc. That's actually a good thing because this is what you go through problem solving technical challenges in real life. Excellent problem solving training (psst... use the internet).If Sasquatch has helped you make a decision or you enjoyed this review, mark him helpful. Sasquatch likes that.

I've only been using the kit for one day, but I give it a solid 3 stars. 1st of all, Arduinos is really cool...and I'm so grateful that normal people can buy this hardware/software on Amazon for tinkering, creating, etc. Now that I've got that out of the way.....the DOWNSIDES....RIGHT out of the box.... this kit says something like "EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO GET STARTED WITH ARDUINOS PROJECTS"......but yet....literally one of the FIRST instructions says "use screws to attach your arduino to the board, don't over tighten" (shows three small screws)....but yet....THERE ARE NO SCREWS IN THE KIT! It's crazy. So I spent the first 30 minutes after opening the box scouring my kitchen, garage, and closets looking for perfect sized screws to fit the kit and attach the arduino to the included board. That was just...dumb. How do you not provide the screws that you're telling me to use for SETUP. Moving on....the instructions have ALOT of gaps. To put it into perspective.... the book will say "Walk out of your front door...when you arrive at the gas station around the corner, pump gas"....so it totally LEFT OUT the fact that you need to get in your car, start the car, follow a predetermined path to the gas station...etc.... The book assumes that you can fill the gaps and just carry out tasks. I consider myself a pretty smart guy...but I literally had to read a few pages 5-6 times looking for steps I missed...but I hadn't missed any. Also, the color coding is all over the place. For instance, the picture in the book will tell/show you to use a long, RED wire....but in reality the kit only provides you with long, GREEN and BLUE wires.... WTF ??? So you just kind of have to improvise and hope things work. Also, with project 2, they didn't tell you that you're simply supposed to go into the software, look for project two in the dropdown menu, and upload the provided code to the arduino.... I had to figure that out on my own after I tried to MANUALLY type the code out for 30 minutes FOLLOWING the book's instructions. And don't even bother with the "Spaceship control board template" cardboard thingy provided. It doesn't even come CLOSE to fitting the arduino once you've connected the wires and resistors to it. So....cool kit....but I feel like the authors may have been smoking weed when they wrote this book and developed the pieces for the kit. Either that...or they just didn't quality check anything. I'm honestly surprised that it has such high reviews... probably because once you get past the shortcomings of the kit...the projects are actually really cool and they make you feel like a self-made engineer. I can say I was really excited to get lights to turn on and off, etc. SO...by all means get the kit....BUT be prepared to be left scratching your head and figuring things out yourself for a while. Now that I know the instructions will lead me astray....I've accepted it...and it has made me a stronger, more capable human being.... Now that I think about it...arduinos has made me a better man because it believes in me. It believes that I will overcome it's extreme lack of detail and/or continuity. So for that I say lets raise a glass for the Arduino Starter Kit. A small glass....but a glass nonetheless.

I ordered 10 kits for my students and I received 4 kits from Arduino.cc and 6 from Arduino.org. If you know the story behind the split of the original Arduino team, you'll want to buy from .cc but, unfortunately, sellers are not keeping track of these details: the product displayed in the pictures belongs to .cc, but that won't guarantee the product you'll get in the mail. Buy at your own risk.

This is definitely the best way to get started with Arduino. I bought 3 of these kits for my 14 year old son, my 11 year old daughter, and their 9 year old cousin (who comes over here after school every day).We work about 45 minutes every day on the projects when they get home from school. We do the project with minimal reading, just using pictures and then the next day they re read that project on their own. They are super excited when things work as they should, and they can get lights to flash, motors to turn, and LCD readouts to say what they are supposed to. I bought the power adapters also because they all use the same computer, so only one person would have power at any given time because the USB powers them.I do have to hear about how some of the things would get built in Minecraft, but my goal is to lessen the amount of time playing Minecraft by looking for better activities for them. Everyone is impressed when the kids can explain why it's important to know the difference between anode and cathode, and how to read the rings on a resistor and what it means. They can also recognize parallel and serial circuits. (I had to explain how a light in the living room can be controlled by 2 different switches).Truly awesome, and much easier than trying to piece meal parts together from scratch. They now watch videos of other [more advanced] Arduino projects and dream of getting more shields and the things that they can do with them.The projects get more challenging as you go along in the book and we haven't gotten to any that aren't attainable with a little help from me.I can not recommend this product highly enough for 'starting from scratch' Arduino users of all ages.