We know being a Maker is awesome, but it can also be really overwhelming especially if you are just starting out. The sheer number of brands, and variety of products can make it confusing when trying to choose a kit. In this blog post we aim to help you choose the right kit for your experience level.
What is an Arduino & Raspberry Pi?
Arduino boards are designed to enhance the lives of users whether they be a Maker, student or professional. They support an incredibly wide range of sensors, modules, and accessories. The boards come in a variety of form factors such as the Nano, Uno, Due, and Mega.
Raspberry Pi Foundation is a UK-based charity that is focused on helping young people to realize their full potential through the power of computing and digital technologies. Over the years they have released a number of Raspberry Pi boards in a variety of form factors. These powerful single board computers are compactible with a wide range of modules and accessories.
Basic Kits
This Basic Arduino Uno Starter Kit is the ideal starting point for beginners. Learning about Arduino can be an exciting adventure into Electronics, but finding a kit that contains the basics you need to get started can be difficult. Good beginner kits contain only what you need to learn the basics as extra modules, sensors, and accessories tend to increase the price of the kit. Therefore the Basic Arduino Uno Starter Kit is such a great investment if you’re interested in electronics and Arduino, as it includes LED’s, jumper wires, resistors, pin headers, a breadboard, a 9V power connector, a USB cable and an Arduino UNO R3 CH340, which is the perfect combination to begin experimenting, practicing and building up towards more complex projects.
ARDUINO BEGINNER KIT – SEEED STUDIO GROVE SERIES
The Seeed Studio Grove Beginner Kit features a range of modules with a Plug ‘n’ Play Controller Board. Beginners will enjoy this incredibly interesting platform thanks to the ability to use this kit to learn projects ranging from the most basic of operations like blinking an LED, all the way through to advanced projects like sound-light induction desk lamp. The highly detailed online guide walks you through 10 lessons and 2 bonus projects. This is what makes the Seeed Studio’s Arduino Beginner Kit so valuable, as it offers a fantastic entry-point into the world of Arduino Boards, Shields and modules, for beginners to utilise in order to get some direction on what to learn, what kinds of projects could be enjoyed at their skill level, as well as what they can expect to look forward to if they choose to take the hobby further.
OFFICIAL RASPBERRY PI 4 B 4GB STARTER KIT
The official OKdo Raspberry Pi 4 B 4GB Starter Kit is outfitted with all the goodies you could ask for to start Making with Raspberry Pi. Built from a collection of eight fundamental parts, components and peripherals that you need to get involved in Pi Making and start enjoying the impressive power of the Raspberry Pi 4 boards. In a single box, you will find the essential hardware you need and access to an online step-by-step guide with project examples to get up and running faster. This kit includes a powerful Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 4GB board, two handy Micro HDMI to HDMI Cables for dual display, a specialised USB Type-C Power Supply, 3 heat sinks, and an aluminium enclosure with a cooling fan pre-equipped. The 32GB SD card includes New Out Of the Box Software (NOOBS) pre-installed to help you get up and running quickly. This ensures that you can get straight into the Pi-project action from the moment you get this kit, opening an endless number of different opportunities for building fun, exciting and jealousy-inducing projects.
Intermediate Kits
ARDUINO UNO INTERMEDIATE STARTER KIT
The Intermediate Arduino UNO Starter Kit is perfect for anyone wanting to learn Arduino programming and contains everything you need to start Making real-world projects with Arduino. If you’ve experienced the sheer joy of playing around with Arduino Boards and creating fresh new projects from just a bunch of simple components, headed of course by the Microcontroller as the brains, then you know just how awesome “simple” projects can be, as well as how they can lead to more complex ideas and even more advanced projects. Similar to the Uno Basic Kit the intermediate kit includes the versatile Uno R3, but a far wider range of sensors and modules including LED matrix, LED displays, buzzers, IR remotes, and switches. If you’re already in full gear and want to improve on the skills you’ve gained so far, this intermediate kit is a great collection to enhance your fun and improve your Making experience.
Sometimes a project requires a more powerful board, and this is where the Arduino Mega Intermediate Kit comes in. The included Arduino Mega features an ATMega2560 micro controller, 54 digital I/O pins, 256KB flash memory, 8KB SRAM, and 4KB EEPROM. This makes it the perfect board for larger projects. You won’t be left wanting in terms of included sensors, modules, and accessories with over 31 different parts included. If you’ve always wanted to learn about Arduino and Electronics but have never quite known where to start, this kit provides the perfect set of components to begin prototyping, building and experimenting with whatever exciting ideas you might have. The range of cool electronics, sensors and displays can just as easily benefit a veteran who is looking to grow their electronics toolbox and branch out into new experimental prototypes.
Advanced Kits
ARDUINO ARDX KIT – COMPREHENSIVE EXPERIMENTATION PACK
This Arduino ARDX Kit is a Comprehensive Experimentation Pack that is meant to offer another step forward in Arduino development and is primarily stocked for Makers who have already enjoyed completing one or two “Beginner” kits. Compared to many of the other Electronics Learning Kits that we stock, the ARDX kit is aimed more at early experts, as it gives a good basic outline for what Makers can do with it, while offering further exploration of each project as well. You can take this kit as far as you would like to go, and with over 30 different components and 13 pre-planned lessons that anyone can enjoy Prototyping for themselves. While we have included this kit in the advanced section there are various aspects of this kit that make it incredibly user friendly, so if you are a beginner who enjoys a bit more of a challenge then this kit is worth a look.
Our most complete Arduino Uno R3 based kit contains almost everything you could want to learn all about the Arduino microcontrollers and electronics. As Makers we are always eager for modules, components, parts, and pieces to create awesome projects out of. We classify this kit as advanced as makers will need some experience to get the most from the variety of included parts. When comparing this kit to the many others that we have, ranging from Basic Kits to Advanced Kits like this, it has been built out of a lot of different components, from basics like jumper wires and LED’s, through to Motor Drivers, Motors of various types, and even a joystick module with over 35 parts total for you to use to create fun and interactive projects.
We hope this post has helped you choose the right electronics kit for you. If you enjoyed this post then please consider sharing it on social media. Check out the rest of our blog for other interesting topics and posts. Join the DIY Community Discord or Forum and keep up to date with all things DIYElectronics by checking out our social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. If you want to check out our store, click this link.
Graphic Designer | Photographer | Gamer and Twitch streamer.
I have a passion for design and a love of art. I am always eager to learn new things, be it 3D modeling/3D printing, copywriting or even cooking. Pretty chill guy who is always down for a braai with family and friends.
access to the discord server?
Hello,
A link to the DIYE Discord can be found in the closing paragraph of the post. Clicking “Discord” should direct you to the server.
Regards,