Arduino Kit – What is inside and What can you do with it?

Interested in coding, electronics and Arduino? Well, an Arduino starter kit will be one of the best way to dive into electronics and coding by gearing you up with all the necessary components in a single package. However, you may be facing with a difficulty as you have just seen all the starter kits and there are just so many electric components inside that you have never seen before.

No worries! As through this guide, we are going to breakdown every electronic component and its function you are going to find inside an Arduino kit!

In today guide, we are going to cover:

• What is an Arduino?
• What is inside the Grove beginner kit for Arduino?
  • Grove Beginner Kit for Arduino Project Ideas
• What is inside the Grove starter kit for Arduino?
  • Grove Starter Kit for Arduino Project Ideas

What is an Arduino?

This is for those who do not know what is an Arduino!

• The Arduino is the largest open-source hardware platform based on easy to use hardware and software
• Arduino boards are able to read inputs like a finger on a button and turn it into an output which in turn, for example, activate a motor which you can change by sending a set of instructions through Arduino programming language or their Arduino Software (IDE)
• Due to its simplicity, it has become many makers, students and beginners go-to hardware for many projects and applications from complex scientific instruments to everyday objects.
• Thus, if you want to start on electronics or programming, an Arduino will be your best pick.
• Here at Seeed, we offer various Arduino Boards like the Arduino Uno Rev3 , Arduino Nano v3 and many more! Interested? Check out all our Arduino boards here.

Without further ado, let us jump right in to what is inside our Arduino Kits!

What is inside our Grove beginner and starter kits for Arduino?

Before we move on, you may be wondering, what is Grove?

• As an open source hardware facilitator, we are dedicated to make electronic prototyping easy and fast for users, and we believe that more effort should be put on concepts design rather than how to build basic circuits especially in the idea phase. That is why we created Grove.
• Well, Grove is Seeed’s very own modular electronic platform for quick prototyping. Every module has one function, such as touch sensing, creating audio effect, etc.
• Many configurations can be assembled without the need for soldering or breadboarding. Just plug in the modules, and you are ready to go!
• Our standardised Grove connector allows user to assemble Grove units with building block approach, compared to the jumper or solder based system, it is much easier to assemble or disassemble, which simplifies the learning system for experimenting, building and prototyping.

Inside the Grove Beginner Kit for Arduino ($29.90)

We believe that with the help of this Grove Beginner Kit for Arduino, no matter you’re a student, teacher, maker, hobbyist, etc. we believe it will gear you up to know the Arduino quickly and comprehensively.

It contains 1 Development board and 8 Grove modules:

Seeeduino Lotus V1.1

• This is probably the board that catches your attention first and the most important piece of the kit – The Seeeduino Lotus V1.1.
• It is a development board with ATMEGA328 AVR microcontroller, which is the combination of Seeeduino and Grove Base Shield.
• It uses an Atmel ATmege328-MU microcontroller and CP2102N chip
  • ATmege328-MU is a high performance, low power AVR 8-bit Microcontroller while CP2102N is a USB to Serial converter chip which allows you to communicate the Seeeduino Lotus with computer by using a micro-USB cable.
• Seeeduino Lotus has 14 Digital input/output(6 can be used as PWM outputs) and 7 Analog input/output, a micro USB connection, an ICSP header, 12 Grove connector, a reset button and it is fully compatible with Arduino UNO.

Grove – Buzzer

• As the name refers, this is a piezo buzzer. It is able to produce a high pitch tone while it is connected to digital output and logic level is set to high.
• You can also control the various tones according to the frequencies generated from the analog PWM output that is connected to it

Grove – Tilt Switch

• The tilt switch, is like a button and used as a digital input.
• It contains a pair of balls that make contact with the pins when the case is upright. If the case is tilted, the balls would not touch and no connection would happen
• It is wired to the SIG line, NC is not used on this Grove module.

Grove – Chainable RGB LED

• This is a LED module where you can bring vivid light effects into your projects!
• LEDs are hard to connect together, however, with our Chainable RGB LED, it simplifies everything with its
   2-wire transmission which can be used to cascade additional Grove – Chainable RGB LED modules!
• It is based on a P9813 chip which is a full-color LED driver and provides 3 constant-current drivers as well as modulated output of 256 shades of gray!

Grove – Light Sensor

• As the name states, it is a light sensor which is aimed at measuring the intensity of light levels using a photo-resistor.
• It works by as the intensity of light decreases, the resistance of the photo-resistor also decreases where a dual OpAmp chip LM358 on board will produce voltage corresponding to intensity of light(i.e. based on resistance value).
• The output signal is analog value, the brighter the light is, the larger the value.

Grove – Line Finder

• With this module, you can build your own line-following robot!
• Those eye-like sensors on the board are actually IR emitting LED and sensitive phototransistor.
  • When the phototransistor detects the reflected infrared light from the IR emitting LED, it will output a digital signal, which changes from high to low to the Arduino so that the robot can follow a black line on white background, or vice versa.

Grove – LCD RGB Backlight

• This LCD RB Backlight acts as a perfect I2C LCD display for your Arduino with its high contrast and simplicity!
• As it uses I2C interface to communicate with the Arduino,
  it will reduce the pin header from 10 to 2 which is very convenient for the Grove system.
• Not only can it display characters, it can also display DIY images like a heart symbol or stick-man on this LCD module through a simple coding configuration.

• In addition, it has an RGB backlight which means you can set any colour you like to be the backlight.

Grove – 16×2 LCD (White on Blue)

• Except for RGB backlights, this LCD is almost identical to the Grove – LCD RGB Backlight, they are all 16 characters wide, 2 rows with high brightness backlight

Grove – Temperature & Humidity Sensor(DHT11)

• This sensor is a high quality digital temperature and humidity sensor based on the new DHT11 which provides a pre-calibrated digital output
• It features low power consumption, long-term stability and excellent reliability which makes it perfect for your temperature and humidity measurement needs.
• A unique capacitive sensor element is used to measure relative humidity while temperature is measured by a negative temperature coefficient (NTC) thermistor.

Grove – 3-Axis Digital Accelerometer

• The 3-Axis Digital Accelerometer plays a big part in projects like orientation detection, gesture detection and Motion detection.
• They are used for sensing data changes, product orientation, and gesture detection through an interrupt pin (INT).
• Based on Freescale’s low power consumption module, MMA7660FC, it is a very low power, low profile capacitive MEMS sensor and features up to 10,000g high shock survivability and configurable Samples per Second rate.

10 Grove Cables

• We also provided 10 grove cables in the kit for you to be able to combine all the modules and sensors and use them together with the Arduino.

Now you know each module functions inside the Grove Beginner Kit, what can you do with it?

Grove Beginner Kit for Arduino Project Ideas

Smart Garden

• With all the Grove Modules, you can make a smart garden sensor and reminder system where it tells the user to water the plant or when the environment is not ideal for the plant.
• It will also feature an LCD screen display where it will show the temperature and humidity.
• Through this project, you will learn:
  • How to combine multiple modules into one application
  • How to code for multiple devices in Arduino IDE
  • Ability to adopt multiple modules to work together = improve your electrical engineering knowledge and logic thinking skills!

Interested? You can find the full tutorial here!

Smart Cup

• With the Grove buzzer, RGB LED, 3-Axis Accelerometer and LCD screen you will make a smart cup!
• Its function is to remind the user to drink water after a period of time and detect whether water has been consumed before resetting the timer.
• Through this project you will learn:
  • TimeLib library on setting and controlling time with Lotus
  • Display and scrolling text on LCD screen
  • If…else…and switch…case…operation with || (or) and &&(and) logic operator
  • Applications of pitch and roll value reading from 3-Axis Accelerometer
  • BlinkWithoutDelay method to avoid using Delay function which prevent delay function to miss up the system timer.
  • How to make and call customized function

Interested? You can find the full tutorial here!

That’s all for what is inside the Grove Beginner Kit for Arduino and project ideas!

The kit also includes a Grove beginner manual to get you started, tutorials on how to set up your Arduino and also another 8 tutorial sessions which provide the basic operation on each individual components here!

Inside the Grove Starter Kit for Arduino ($49.90)

Looking for more sensors and modules for your Arduino Kit compared to the Beginner Kit? Do not worry as Seeed got you covered with our Grove Starter Kit v3!

It contains: 1 Arduino Shield, 10 Grove Modules, 3 LEDs and 1 Mini Servo Actuator!

Do note that this kit does not contain an Arduino! This kit is compatible with 5V boards like Seeeduino V4.2, Seeeduino Lotus  and Arduino UNO.

Grove – Base Shield

• Are you frustrated because your project requires a lot of sensors or LEDs and your jumper wires are in a mess?
• With this Grove – Base Shield, it can help you get rid of bread boards and jump wires in your project!
• With the rich grove connectors on the base board, you can add all the grove modules to your Arduino very conveniently.

Grove – Relay

• The Relay is a useful tool to magnify your Arduino’s control ability! It is a digital normally open switch that controls a relay capable of switching much higher voltages and currents than your normal Arduino boards.
• When set to high, the LED will light up and the relay will close allowing current to flow. The peak voltage capability is 250V at 10 amps

Grove – Touch Sensor

• As the name suggests, this is a simple touch sensor module where you can use it to replace a traditional push button.
• Using the TTP223-B touch detector IC, it measures the capacitance of a metallic pad where it can detect the change in capacitance when a finger is near it.
• You can place the metallic pad under a non-metallic surface such as a plastic or glass sheet and it will still work as a button which can be useful for projects that need to be waterproof.

Grove – Rotary Angle Sensor

• This Grove – Rotary Angle sensor is a potentiometer which can produce an analog output between 0 and VCC (3.3 or 5 VDC) and an angular range of 300 degrees, with a linear change in value.
• The resistance value is 10k ohms which makes it perfect for Arduino use.
• Do not know what is a potentiometer? Check out our other blog on Potentiometer functions to find out more!

Grove – Temperature Sensor

• Compared to the Grove – Temperature & Humidity Sensor(DHT11) in the beginner kit, we have the Grove – Temperature sensor which uses a thermistor to measure ambient temperature where the resistance of thermistor changes based on ambient temperature
• Our board will then converts this voltage value measured by an analog input pin to a temperature which has an operating range is -40 to 125 degrees Celsius.

Grove – LED

• Compared to the Grove – Chainable RGB LED in the beginner kit, we have the Grove -LED which is designed for beginners of Arduino/Seeeduino to monitor controls from digital ports.
• It can easily be mounted to the surface of your box or desk easily and used as pilot lamp for power or signal.
• In this kit, it comes with 3 colours of LED bulbs for you. (Blue, green and Red) You can easily get the colour you want by changing the LED on the Grove – LED socket.

Grove – Button

• Compared to the tilt switch in the beginner kit which acts as a button, we have the Grove – Button.
• It is one independent button, which is configured with a pull-down resistor allowing it to be ready for use with our microcontrollers as digital input. The button signals the SIG wire,NC is not used on this Grove module.

Grove – Servo

• This is an actuator whose position can be precisely controlled and are commonly used in robots.

9V to Barrel Jack Adapter

• We have included a 9V to Barrel Jack Adapter to allow you to power your Arduino with a Battery!

Grove – Light Sensor (Included in Grove Beginner Kit)

Grove – LCD RGB Backlight (Included in Grove Beginner Kit)

Grove – Buzzer (Included in Grove Beginner Kit)

10 Grove Cables (Included in Grove Beginner Kit)

Grove Starter Kit for Arduino Project Ideas

Now you got your hardware, here are some project ideas that you can do with the Grove Starter Kit!

Cup of Flowers

• With the Grove Starter Kit for Arduino, you can make colourful and beautiful colours!
• By activating the sensor, the flower LEDs will shine with a warm and comfortable light effect!
• Interested? You can find the full tutorial here!

Arduino Clothes Recommender

• With a combination of our starter kit modules and sensors, you are able to make an Arduino Clothes Recommender to recommend you what type of clothes to wear depending on the weather and temperature!
• Interested? You can find the full tutorial here!

That’s all for what is inside the Grove Starter Kit for Arduino and project ideas!

Summary

With well selected Seeed’s Grove modules with different functions such as sensing, input, display, etc. in both our Grove Beginner and Starter Kit for Arduino with no soldering and jumper wires needed, they are very suitable for beginners who are looking to learn electronics, programming and Arduino. Full Arduino Library and tutorials are also provided which are available on our wiki!

In addition, at a cost of $29.90 and $49.90 respectively for the Grove Beginner Kit and the Grove Starter Kit for Arduino, they are very cost effective compared to other Arduino Starter kits out in the market currently.

So what are you waiting for? Get yourself a Grove Beginner Kit for Arduino or a Grove Starter Kit for Arduino and start learning electronics with Seeed today!

Not what you are looking for? Check out the rest of our Arduino Kits here!

About Author