

Arduino: The Documentary has been released.  - nickcharlton
http://arduino.cc/blog/2011/01/07/arduino-the-documentary-now-online/

======
antirez
The Arduino is absolutely cool, but the reason I recommend it is that it can
be a good start to get introduced to _analog_ electronics, that is even cooler
for programmers. As after all the arduino itself for a programmer is just a
small computer. Cool but nothing completely different especially if you used
to write code in assember or C. But... analog programing, creating an AM
receiver or transmitter, amplifying using a transistor, creating an
oscillator, well, that is _magic_.

~~~
landonfuller
I actually feel the opposite -- microcontrollers are exactly why I got back
into electronics. Being able to write a few lines of code that interact with
the 'real' world -- _that's_ what I find exciting, and analog circuits are
tedious necessities in comparison.

Regardless of your ultimate interest Arduino (and the AVR microcontroller
family in general) is a decent place to start :)

If you do have previous development experience, you'll probably want to move
past Arduino pretty quickly. You can pick up an Atmel STK500 development board
for just $79, and either use it with AVR Studio or the open source toolchains
(avrdude, avr-gcc, avr-libc, etc):
<http://store.atmel.com/PartDetail.aspx?q=p:1050007>

~~~
wanderr
I agree with you. It's the coolest thing ever to control physical things from
my computer via programs that I write. The possibilities are endless. :)

------
ajray
I'm a student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, so Microcontrollers are
bread and butter to me, but what really has amazed me about this platform is
the number of non-EE's I see and help use it.

For engineers, the idea of using a wii nunchuck to control color LED's is
trivial. For an artist or a design it can be world-changing. And our local
arduino group does just that :-)

~~~
johnohara
The AVR/GCC library of pre-written routines plus the ability to easily upload
"sketches" to the board makes the Arduino environment very approachable for
non-propeller types.

They're doing a nice job and deserve the positive recognition.

Here in the U.S., SparkFun and BDMicro have built nice niches in this market.

SparkFun's Pick and Place Machine:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn0EKtLOVx4>

------
yan
For those that want to get one or are on the fence, I'd absolutely suggest it.
It's only 30 bucks and you can get into playing with LEDs, motors and more
exciting things as soon as you get it. Beautiful community, great resources.
Hard to go wrong, really.

------
ludicast
Great movie. I am looking to get into Arduino development myself.

In a way it reminds me of Rails, in that it inspires a world of DIYers to
build whatever they are dreaming about.

------
apitaru
Perhaps worth mentioning that the Arduino project is somewhat related to the
<http://processing.org/> programming language (basically sugar coating Java).

I've had the pleasure of introducing many artists to the world of programming
via Processing, and am always amazed by the widely creative works that are
produced, almost off the bat.

Arduino beautifully extends the same capabilities to analog and digital
circuitry. Many artists are greatly appreciative of the new channels of
creativity that these two project (as well as others) enable.

------
r0s
Sparkfun is a good place to get one. They have lots of other good stuff.

<http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9950>

------
jim_h
The nice thing about Arduino is that it's open source. Anybody can look at
their plans and make their own variant.

The most interesting variants for me are the ones with wireless communication.
Great for making remote sensor networks.

------
epiphany47
Is there a mirror/torrent to download the English version?

~~~
dlsspy
[http://www.archive.org/details/Arduino.TheDocumentary.Englis...](http://www.archive.org/details/Arduino.TheDocumentary.English)

------
ot
Fascinating. Makes me want to buy one immediately.

~~~
wanderr
I highly recommend it. I waited and had my gf buy me one for christmas because
I was afraid it would be a gadget I'd never ennd up using, and I get more
upset about wasting money than I do about wasting presents.

I had her get me the inventor's kit from sparkfun since it seems to come with
a decent # of starter parts, and has a collection of projects you can do with
them. I haven't been able to stop playing with my Arduino and I'm alredy
ordering more parts and X10 controllers and such, and I only got through the
4th project before I started doing my own thing like having it communicate
with the computer.

