When I ordered this, I figured it would be some cheap little (you get what you pay for) kit. I figured it would at least be good enough to dip my hand into the Arduino world. Then when it arrived, I quickly realized this isn't some little makeshift kit. This project kit comes with everything you could need to get you started with learning arduino. Everything in the kit was of good/excellent quality. There are a lot of tutorials online to tinker with all the sensors, motors, lcds, etc in this kit. I've learned so much in the few days that I have had this. I decided to learn Arduino so I could build a low voltage cutoff switch into my solar equipment. After just a few days of learning Arduino hardware and software, I feel like I have 90% of the knowledge I need for my first project. Wish me luck!
This is absolutely amazing! I remember dismantling remote control cars as a kid, to see the wires and motors, but never being able to put everything back in working order. This set is the answer to that curiosity (answering questions like: "how does this work?")-- but now kids can build a device from the circuits up, rather than deconstruct their RC cars and other devices.
My son worked on this until the wee hours of the morning, then got right back to work the next morning. We hardly saw him until he finished the kit and asked for the kit to start the next stage. It's crazy how my kid already knows how to program a robot, and I can barely build a potato battery.
We've already purchased the next kit (a remote control robot/car), and we'll try to keep a kit lined up for each stage, so that his passion doesn't diminish between projects.
I am giving this five stars because I messed with the board and most of the sensors, and they work flawlessly. Most of the lower reviews are because of the CD being blank or the documentation being confusing.
I didn't use the CD that came with it, or any of the documentation or tutorials. I have been working through some Youtube tutorials for Arduino and that has served me well enough.
I was thinking about getting one of these for my 10 year old nephew, so I bought this one for myself to see if it is age appropriate. I don't really think he'd have the attention span for it yet, but I've been having a great time with it.
I recommend buying some more jumper wires and breadboards- the kit comes with plenty for simple projects but I have like 5 different things going on and am almost out of jumper wires.
A really great kit with everything you need to get started. The kit contains several types of sensors to experiment with, and provides extensive code examples and tutorials to walk you through several different projects. I purchased this kit as a newcomer to Arduino because I wanted the Uno R3 board and considered the extras (breadboard, jumper wires, sensors, etc.) to be a good starting point for a few extra dollars. The board is good quality, and I've had 0 issues.
I hadn't given the educational materials much thought and figured I'd lean on the Arduino website/community for most of my learning. However, I was quite pleased to find the included tutorials and examples were extensive and enjoyable, and I spent most of a weekend going through all 24 of the lessons (Note: I downloaded latest versions directly from the manufacturer website since I don't have a CD-ROM drive). The materials come in several different languages, and also include the datasheets for each of the components. The lessons teach you how to load required code libraries, and generally include them in each folder, however, I ran into some minor issues with a lesson containing outdated information/libraries. It was easy enough to google and find the fix, but a beginner could avoid the frustration by just skipping over that lesson and they wouldn't be out much. Overall, I highly recommend this as a starter kit for anyone looking to get started with Arduino.
The CD comes with about 20 tutorials to get the basics.
I bought this because I'm studying electrical engineering at college, so I learned c++ and learning how to program this is even simpler than that. Hours of endless fun, can't wait to make some cool projects.
I recommend the book called arduino by Jeremy Blue (which is only 20 dollars) to learn more.
also the plastic container that it comes in is very small so its just like taking a tent out of the bag all of it will not fit back in the way it came...lol but i have a shelf with about 50 little drawers to store the components. it would make a great gift.
- Free PDF tutorial(more than 22 lessons) and clear listing in a nice package
- The most economical kit based on Arduino platform to starting programming for those beginners who are interested.
- Lcd1602 module with pin header (not need to be soldered by yourself)
- This is the upgraded starter kits with power supply module, 9V battery with dc
- High quality kite with UNO R3. 100% compatible with Arduino UNO R3, MEGA 2560 R3, NANO.
Component listing: 1pcs UNO R3 Controller Board 1pcs LCD1602 Module ( with pin header) 1pcs Breadboard Expansion Board 1pcs Power Supply Module WARNING: Pls. do not use the voltage higher than 9V 1pcs Joystick Module 1pcs IR Receiver 1pcs Servo Motor (SG90) 1pcs Stepper Motor 1pcs ULN2003 Stepper Motor Driver Board 1pcs Ultrasonic Sensor 1pcs DHT11 Temperature and Humidity Module 1pcs 9V Battery with DC 1pcs 65 Jumper Wire 1pcs USB Cable 1pcs Active Buzzer 1pcs Passive Buzzer 1pcs Potentiometer 1pcs 5V Relay 1pcs Breadboard 1pcs Remote 1pcs Tilt Switch 5pcs Button (small) 1pcs 1 digit 7-segment Display 1pcs 4 digit 7-segment Display 5pcs Yellow LED 5pcs Blue LED 5pcs Green LED 5pcs Red LED 1pcs RGB LED 2pcs Photo resistor 1pcs Thermistor 2pcs Diode Rectifier (1N4007) 2pcs NPN Transistor (PN2222) 1pcs IC 74HC595 120pcs Resistor 10pcs Female-to-male DuPont Wire.
Bought this kit on cyber Monday for about $7 cheaper than current list price. Although this Chinese Arduino clone vendor is charging such a reduced fee for this package, the buyer gets a heck of a lot of cool components in here. I’d definitely pay full price all over for this kit now that I’ve explored it for a couple hours.
I am excited to go through every one of the tutorials Elegoo has published for this kit. They are concise and do a good job covering the electrical engineering principles behind the included components. I’m dropping a star only because they could improve the docs in regards to installing and configuring the Arduino IDE on the Mac OS platform. Instead, they detail the windows considerations and then suggest the Mac settings will be similar. That is a euphemism for “You hafta figure it out yourself.” Fortunately for my, setting up the Arduino IDE on my PowerBook just worked and I ran into zero snags.
UPDATE: I want to also mention the advantage of going with an Arduino vs a Raspberry Pi or BeagleBoard (I own many of both those). For the beginner tinkerer, the Arduino reduces the dimensions of complexity getting your program into the device and doing things. Raspberry Pi, etc. are very good for higher-performance applications, but are overkill for the type of projects you would put together with these kinds of parts. What I'm trying to say is the Arduino platform is a great starting point and offers lightweight energy requirements (can be battery powered). All the parts in this kit are fully compatible with Raspberry Pi and BeagleBoard, so you can carry them over should you decide to delve into the other platforms.
UPDATE 2/28/2018: I have spent perhaps a dozen hours with this kit and continue to enjoy the collection of parts and appreciate the tutorials. The Arduino UNO is a very capable microprocessor board, but it does offer a finite amount of input / output pins. As the tutorial progresses into implementations that exceed the built-in ports, they introduce this other chip that can take commands and forward signals to additional, external pins. This allows output to go to multiple devices (LEDs, stepper motors, etc.) beyond what would be available with just the built-in pins. Working your program code around this constraint offers a fun dimensional puzzle. For my non-experimental projects, I have chosen to go the route of the Arduino Mega board that offers a vast amount of additional pins than the UNO. The model sold by Elegoo on Amazon is only about $14, so that pricing is very attractive for reducing the complexity of my logic control coding.
I made a plan to learn Arduino. Wasn't sure where to start and saw this kit. I figured it would be cheap or funky, wow was I wrong. The kit is packaged in a small box but it explodes to so many projects. The code provided on the Elegoo site works perfect. I downloaded several sketches (programs) for the various lessons and every one worked straight out of the box. Easy to then experiment with the sketches and add your own ideas to the program and hardware. This kit is well thought out, obviously used and tested for content and format by the seller. I haven't contacted them and don't think I will have to but their web site has everything I have needed. The programs and drivers and manuals are claimed to be on the CD but I didn't test it, I usually just download what I need rather than firing up the CD in this kind of kit. I think this is a great starter kit. My only negative comment and it is more about my organization than the kit is that I will likely never be able to put it all back in the box, it was packed with a plan like a Swiss watch, I'm going to get another box so I can put it away when not in use, LOL.
This is my first arduino project kit and I am extremely satisfied. There are so many pros:
1. Packing is very nice. Every part of the project (even tiny details) are carefully put in the box;
2. In the box there is a nice sheet of paper that shortly describes every detail stored in the box;
3. Software installation is very easy;
4. Tutorials are very easy to understand;
5. Everything is very intuitive;
6. Quality is great.
This is a great kit with a lot of cool sensors to get you started. I recommend pairing this with an acrylic baseplate so you can mount your Uno R3 next to a breadboard instead of chasing it all over the work bench.
If you're a beginner to Arduino but not to electronics, the Arduino Cookbook by O'Reilly is the book to get. Most books rather tediously go through what LEDs and diodes are, while the Arduino Cookbook assumes you know how to make a circuit and you want to learn how to make your circuits more fun with an Arduino.
This is an awesome kit! I wish I could give it 5 stars but there were a couple issues which Elegoo hopefully will resolve in the future. Please be sure to check the date of this review since they may make improvements at a later date.
That said, I still will highly recommend this kit for those who want to get started with electronics and programming. The kit contains a great many parts to experiment with. The tutorials were easy enough to figure out and I had very little trouble getting things to work. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to build and work with the projects, even to experiment with them and the programs.
Pros:
- Mostly easy to use
- Lots of great parts
- Inexpensive
- Compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux
- Works with the official Arduino IDE and Arduino C language
- The C language that the Arduino IDE uses is very simple, even for a total beginner. Everything is explained clearly.
- Includes libraries that work with the parts (easy to install the libraries in the Arduino IDE)
- Includes tutorials and sample code you can copy and experiment with.
- Compact. Doesn't take up a lot of space on your workbench. You could take it with you!
- Not too hard to set up in Linux
Cons:
- The case it comes in is rather small and parts are compacted in the case. Once out and in use, it's hard to get everything back in. Particularly if you want to reorganize the parts yourself.
- Resistors come on a tape. Once you pull them apart, it would be hard to put things back. Probably would be most helpful if resistors were in labeled bags and pre-bent so you can just grab one and stick it in the breadboard. Tape residue may interfere with contact in breadboard.
- Sometimes parts and wires are hard to put in the breadboard and "stick" or bend the leads instead of going all the way in. Suggest that they improve the breadboard contacts somehow.
- The files on the CD are very long names, and some files are in two places, becoming redundant.
- Tutorial is easy to figure out, but lacks full instructions for Linux.
- Tutorial lesson numbers are off. Some lessons show one lesson number but say to use another number for the source code. There are some gramatical and editorial errors throughout the tutorial.
- Elegoo doesn't seem to support or know too much about Linux systems. This is still the way many companies operate as it seems not many think people are using Linux Desktops.
The following Cons may not be Elegoo's fault but rather the fault of the Official Arduino IDE:
- Installer script doesn't catch it if someone attempts to install as root. You should install as user, not root.
- Installer script uses xdg to install the menu icons. This causes some problems and errors on some system (it did on my Debian 9 / Stretch system). To avoid problems with a file not being present, add this to the script after xdg_install_f() {
# Added: Create the dummy file (required)
ls filename >/dev/null 2>&1
if [ ! $? = 0 ]; then
echo > ${HOME}/.local/share/icons/hicolor/.xdg-icon-resource-dummy
fi
Also, you still get errors such as this:
Could not parse file "/home/me_user/.local/share/applications/your_application.desktop": Invalid key name: Path[$e]
and there will be one of these for EVERY program you installed after you installed your operating system. I don't know of any fix for this but these errors you can apparently safely ignore.
- Connecting the Uno to Linux requires that you do the following and reboot first so that you have permission to use the board connection:
ls -l /dev/ttyUSB* or ls -l /dev/ttyACM*
You should see something like:
crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 188, 0 5 apr 23.01 ttyUSB0 or
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 5 apr 23.01 ttyACM0
What you want to do is add yourself to the uucp or dialout group (uucp if both show up). For my system I had to add my user to the dialout group:
sudo usermod -aG dialout me_user
Be sure to reboot so that the changes take effect.
- The programs (called "sketches") require being in a directory the same name as the filename of the sketch, even if the only thing you have is the sketch file. This is rather inconvenient to have to go into every directory and double-click on a sketch file. It would be nice to be able to just save the sketch file, double-click and not have to have each one inside it's own directory.
Support:
I have had the occasion to email their support a couple times. They are pleasant to work with. But not very knowledgeable about Linux (as mentioned above). They do seem to do their best to help the customer. For the record, they are a Chinese company so those in other countries may need to exhibit a little patience due to possible language barriers. I found if they don't seem to answer your question correctly, it's best to just try again and reword the question a little more simply. They seem like very nice folks and do their best to help.
Summary:
As I said, I'd have given this 5 stars if it weren't for the above issues. But it may be by the time someone reads this review that some or all of these issues would be resolved. Please check the date of the review and if in question, contact Elegoo and ask if the issue was corrected.
