About a year ago, I posted a couple of articles on my personal blog detailing the differences between Arduino Starter Kits that could be found online. A lot of people liked it and I received a whole host of requests to keep it updated and add more kits.

After lots of work and a lot of long days, I’ve finally got something that I think will be a real help: The Arduino Starter Kit Comparison Chart.

This chart version of the articles is a table-ized version of the kits, their components, explanations of (most) components, and short reviews for each kit.  I’ve tried to make it as practical and easy to use as possible.

Give it a shot, and let us know what you think!

So you want to get started with the Arduino, and a starter kit sounds like a good idea. We agree. The Arduino is an awesome platform, and with the right kit, you can really go places. It’s a tough job to go find all the kits out there and compare them, so we thought we’d make the job a little easier on you.

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Let’s face it: There are a lot of prototyping shields out there for your Arduino. Why add one to the mix? Well, we saw a need. When you’re working with your Arduino, you get in pretty deep before you have the need to actually build a custom setup on a shield. At that point, you might even ask yourself why you’re not making a custom shield. Sometimes you need something that will let you plug in some sensors, motors, a custom breadboard circuit, whatever it may be, without soldering your component away permanently. We know, because we wanted the same thing.

Our shield is designed to let you do that. It allows access to all the pins on the Arduino directly through screw-in terminal blocks.  There is also header space to break out 11 digital pins  for servo (or other actuator) controls. The remaining space on the shield contains a number of solderable vias, and a matched set of Vcc and Gnd rails to get power to whatever you stick there. The rails can be powered either by the Arduino 5v supply, or a secondary supply connected directly to the board.

Assembly instructions are listed in the Tutorials section.

Go Buy One! ->

Your Arduino is hungry for some expansion! Time to break out that kit and put the thing together!

This tutorial covers the assembly of the ConductiveResistance Protoshield.

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