Arduino IDE

The Arduino IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is an open-source and freely available tool for programming microcontrollers using the Arduino system. This includes hundreds of different Arduino-compatible products, but we will primarily be using a third-party version of the Arduino Uno.

There is now a web version, but the course notes will generally assume you have the traditional locally-installed application. The software is available for macOS, Windows, or Linux.

The IDE includes a program editor, although for large programs it can be easier to use a separate programming text editor.

Download links: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

Arduino Libraries

We will be using several third-party Arduino libraries to support specific hardware. For these examples, the first step in setting up a new project will be installing these libraries in your Arduino IDE so they are available to your sketches. For help, please see the Arduino Libraries Reference. In general, these libraries can be directly installed using the IDE menus. Other more esoteric third-party libraries must still be installed manually.

Following are links to some of the specific original sources in case you need to locate documentation.

Adafruit

• https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-GFX-Library

• https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WS2801-Library

• https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_ADXL345

• https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_NeoPixel

• https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Sensor

• https://github.com/adafruit/HT1632