Arduino Wiring Mini Kits

The Wiring hardware is a small circuit board that includes a tiny computer of the size of a postage stamp known as a microcontroller. This computer can be programmed in the Wiring programming environment to control all kinds of sensors and actuators. Sensors are devices that allow the board to acquire information from the surrounding environment (temperature, light, distance to an object etc. ). Actuators are devices that allow the board to create changes (responses) in the physical world (light, movement, temperature, etc. ) making possible to create all kinds of interactive artifacts.

A microcontroller addresses some of the difficulties involved in prototyping with electronics by introducing the concept of programming into it. The same unit can behave in different ways, just by doing or modifying a software program to adapt it to a specific purpose.

In order to attach sensors and actuators the Wiring hardware provides a set of connectors known as pins. A pin can be set as INPUT or OUTPUT whether it is used to read a sensor or create responses in the physical world through actuators. Sensors can be of different kinds but they may be grouped into digital and analog. Digital refers to signals with two possible states, ON or OFF, HIGH or LOW, like switches for example or special communication protocols. Analog refers to signals that can take any value in a continuous range, like luminosity or temperature.

The Wiring hardware can be connected to a computer's USB port. This connection is both for uploading into the Wiring hardware a program written in the Wiring programming environment and to communicate the Wiring hardware with a computer for other purposes, like sending data from/to the board to an application running on a PC. The PC recognizes the Wiring hardware as a serial port, being able to read and send data to it from many applications.

There are 3 basic prototyping scenarios Wiring was designed for: Standalone interactive objects or spaces, interactive objects or spaces connected to a computer to enhance the prototype capabilities, or networked objects or spaces by communicating multiple hardware devices.

There are two flavors of the Wiring hardware: The Wiring I/O board (left in the diagrams) and the WiringMini (right in the diagrams). Both the Wiring I/O board and WiringMini are based on the powerful ATMEL atmega128 microcontroller, so both have the same power and capabilities. The Wiring I/O board can be used out of the box, it provides a USB port on it which can be directly attached to a computer for uploading programs, no special setup or connections needed to start working with it so it is ideal in the classroom as it is just ready to use. The WiringMini is smaller in size, it is intended for advanced users. It doesn? T include a USB connector so it requires a serial adapter like the Wiring USBAdapter to program it. Because of the smaller size factor the WiringMini can be used directly on a breadboard, it has lower costs so it is ideal for setting up a small-MID production of a project. It fits in tiny places with a very low power consumption.

Digital input/output pins

The Wiring hardware has 43 Digital pins that can be configured and used individually as inputs or outputs from the Wiring language in the Wiring programming environment. When a digital pin is configured as INPUT it can be used to read all kind of sensors that give values ON and OFF, like push buttons, touch sensors, switches etc. When a pin is used as an OUTPUT it can be used to turn ON or OFF all sort of devices like light bulbs, motors, home appliances etc. Pin 48 is used as OUTPUT only and it is connected to an amber LED (Light Emitting Diode) located in the board for quickly test programs or as diagnostics.