RS Components (RS), the trading brand of Electrocomponents plc, the world’s leading high service distributor of electronics and maintenance products, has announced exclusive stock availability of a new starter kit for Uno, the well-known Arduino low-cost and open-source electronics prototyping board for professional embedded system engineers, students, and enthusiasts.
The new starter kit has been developed together with a series of ten video tutorials hosted by Arduino co-founder Massimo Banzi. Ideally used in conjunction with the videos, the kit provides an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It contains all of the essential components required to start programming with the Arduino Uno board, and a guidebook featuring 15 different projects, which are designed to evolve the user from beginner to professional level. Comprising a motor, servomotor and driver, the kit also offers particular benefits to users wishing to apply mechatronics to their designs.
The Arduino Uno is based on the Atmel ATmega328 microcontroller, with 32KB of Flash memory, 2KB of SRAM and 1KB of EEPROM. It supports Windows, OS X and Linux operating systems, in common with the open-source IDE, which can be downloaded free-of-charge. The Uno has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analogue inputs, a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button. There are 3 different options to power the board: via a USB cable, an AC-DC adapter or a battery.
A series of peripheral boards, known as shields, are available to plug into the top of the main Arduino PCB, providing an interface to components for a gamut of applications, including the Motor Shield, which enables the control of DC motors and read encoders, and the Ethernet Shield for connectivity.
“Arduino has been a pioneer in low-cost open-source development, creating an accessible environment for both skilled and budding electronics engineers,” said Glenn Jarrett, Head of Product Marketing, RS. “This new kit, along with the practical and instructive video series, is set to enthuse and inform a whole raft of users, from qualified engineers to those just embarking on their first taste of electronics design.”
Massimo Banzi, Arduino Co-Founder, commented, “RS has clearly demonstrated, through initiatives like DesignSpark, that supporting today’s and tomorrow’s engineers is at the core of their business ethos. This commitment to electronics design, along with their global presence, service excellence and ongoing projects to ease the online sourcing and ordering process, makes them the ideal distribution partner to take our new Arduino kit to users worldwide.”
The new Arduino starter kit is available exclusively from RS Components until October 16th, 2012, with continued RS stock availability after this date. To order the competitively priced kit from RS for same-day despatch, visit the RS Components Arduino page online.
