The SparkFun Guide to Arduino: Learn Electronics by Making 10 Awesome Projects Paperback – Illustrated, 25 Feb. 2016

After reading the excellent The SparkFun Guide to Processing (you can see my review at https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R26UJEGRAGKAXG/) I was looking forward to The Arduino Inventor’s Guide with a mix of excitement and trepidation. Thankfully there was no need for the trepidation; it’s every bit as good as the Processing book. (For the sake of brevity I’ll refer to them as the Processing book and the Arduino book respectively from now on.) If you’ve read the Processing book then you’ll recognise the easy, flowing and informal style. If not then you’re in for a treat. These are some of the most informative and easiest reading technical books I’ve had the pleasure to pick up. The authors assume no pre-existing knowledge but you never feel patronised by the tone.The book is structured around a series of projects of increasingly complexity which show you some of the many functions you can perform with an Arduino board. While each project is complete in itself, you’ll find a “going further” section at the end of each one making them as much a start point as an end point. The projects start from relatively simple control of components through reading from sensors and then onto more complex control systems and responding to sensor information. Each project introduces new concepts, components and ideas so you are always learning something new but it’s well pitched and, even with all the ground covered, never feels like information overload. It’s a pleasant surprise quite how much you can get done and how quickly; the first project is simply flashing a single LED but by project eight you’ll be building a drawing robot and there’s still more projects to go. (Anyone old enough to remember the LOGO turtle will have a pang of nostalgia at project eight!)If you’ve spent any time in the Processing IDE then the Arduino programming IDE will look very familiar and if you’ve used any C-ish programming language the grammar will also look familiar. Don’t worry though, this background is not necessary though it may give you a bit of a head start. The electronics are built using breadboards but the book does contain a soldering tutorial in case you want to make a more permanent version of any of the circuits.If you want a quick start, or you’re feeling lazy, you can download all the code needed for the projects from the No Starch Press website but I would strongly recommend that you work through the book to get a better grasp of the programming side of working with Arduinos.If you have a background in Processing, or have the Processing book, then you will know that you can control an Arduino using Processing. For me this is one of the most exciting areas to explore, using the generative art abilities of Processing to produce kinetic artworks. If this is an area of interest for you then I once again heartily recommend the Processing Book which can be very much seen as a companion volume to this one.It’s hard to find any complaints about The Arduino Inventor’s Guide and those that I do have are probably entirely personal. The approach of starting from ground zero and because the authors are covering electronics, project building and Arduino programming in a single book it can feel a little breathless at times. I did find some of the photos a bit superfluous; if there’s a diagram of the bits needed to build the housing for a project I don’t really need a photograph of them as well. There are also a couple of possible issues if you are outside the U.S. While I understand that this is a SparkFun guide so will be built for their components they aren’t necessarily as easy to get outside the U.S. As the target audience is going to be starters in electronics seeing a component list with SparkFun product codes and having to find alternatives might be a little intimidating. On a similar cultural differences issue, pretty much the rest of the world measures in S.I. units rather than imperial, so providing an S.I. alternative with measurements in inches would be useful.These niggles aside I can wholeheartedly recommend The Arduino Inventor’s Guide.

Thank you, excellent book and condition.Excellent Amazon seller.

El libro se ve muy bonito, pero realmente ningún proyecto vale la pena, son todos proyectos que los harías de cualquier manera de forma natural, explica cómo funciona algunos componentes que todos ya sabemos cómo funcionan y poco código. No es ni para principiantes.

Bought this for my 9 year old and he loves it; the projects are well thought out and the book itself will act as a reference long after the projects are finished. Very well-written.

My 12 yo uses this and doesn’t need assistance. Well set out and great explanation section at the start.

The only project I might be interested in is the Desktop Greenhouse. I didn't find the other projects interesting. Definitely not worth the money.