Advertisement Ready to try something different with your Arduino? You needn’t be confined by programming in C.
Take these alternative languages for a test drive. The Arduino IDE is core to the ethos behind the project — it’s a UI that attempts to turn the daunting task of Do you and your kids tinker together? If not, start today. Teach them to create things and you teach them to take control of their world. Into something that anyone can take a stab at. That’s certainly a noble cause, but there might well come a time when the IDE acts as a limit on your creativity. Just as there are an enormous range of different coding languages, there are a multitude of different reasons that you might want to take a There are a few ways to ease the learning curve for programming.
Get your hands dirty and learn faster with side projects you can start anytime. Play around with these five. One language might simply make more logical sense to you, while another user might thrive under an entirely different structure. The important thing is to find a language that speaks to you and the goals that you’re looking to achieve. Arduino is built around a straightforward programming language that’s meant to be welcoming to newcomers — but if you’re really short on experience, it might be worth trying a tool like ArduBlock.
At ebay/aliexpress you can get an Arduino (compatible) R3 for about $3 – Michel Keijzers Jun 26 '17 at 16:17 This is unanswerable, because it refers to a brand not a specific product. To ask about a specific product in comparison to an Arduino, you'd need to include its specifications in the question.
Rather than typing out your code, you’ll be able to construct your program visually using the same selection of functions as you would normally. It’s Do you and your kids tinker together? If not, start today. Teach them to create things and you teach them to take control of their world., but don’t think that this is ‘Arduino for Kids’. Some people just have a brain that works better with visual stimuli — and while ArduBlock is far from aesthetically pleasing in terms of its UI, it does present a very logical way of writing code for visual learners.
At the same time, you’re still becoming familiar with the function names and variables you’ll need to use if you decide to move on to the full Arduino IDE. ArduBlock is a downloadable tool that runs as an overlay to the official Arduino IDE.
The final product won’t be any different to a program built using the normal process, so it’s a great first step if you’re just getting started. For anyone who’s not quite ready to learn a programming language outright, this is an excellent way to learn key concepts without getting caught up in the technicalities of coding. Based on the drag-and-drop visual programming language developed at Berkeley, offers a slightly different experience to that of ArduBlock. The method of building your sketches remains much the same in a visual designer, but it’s clear that this software is intended for a slightly older audience. With a more understated UI and less of a focus on bells and whistles, Snap4Arduino is resolutely non-patronizing. There’s no sense that this is an easier method of programming — it’s just different to the norm.
While it’s being offered as a beta and its developers admit that there are still plenty of bugs, it’s very usable. One trick to installing Snap4Arduino is the fact that it requires StandardFirmata to be installed on your Arduino. If you already have the Arduino IDE installed on your computer, that’s easy to sort out — simply open it up and navigate to Files Examples Firmata StandardFirmata. Upload that to your board, and you’ll be able to interact with it from inside Snap4Arduino.
Note that you can’t compile programs made in Snap, merely interact with the Arduino while it’s connected to your computer. Serial communications allow for a handy, flexible way for your Arduino to communicate with your computer — you’ll likely have dabbled with the functionality in your early experiments with the device. With the help of a library like, you’ll be able to go beyond using serial to merely inspect your Arduino sketch, and begin using it to code in a completely different language. You can run CmdMessenger in either Microsoft’s Visual Studio or an equivalent third-party alternative. From there, you can communicate back and forth between your PC and the Arduino using C#, so you’re able to do things like call functions and send and receive commands.
Another way to program with C# is to use a purpose-built offshoot of the device like the Like most kids, I had a electronics kit that taught the absolute basics; you could build something about as advanced as a radio or morse code device. Suffice to say, the fun didn't last long. Since it’s built upon the.NET Micro Framework, the Netduino runs C# natively, straight out of the box. Although the pin layout is compatible with Arduino shields, it’s a completely different microcontroller and as such it isn’t an option if you’re looking to program with C# on an Arduino you already own.
While your Arduino can’t run out of the box, it is possible to use Python to communicate with the device via serial input. This is very simple on a Unix-like system, but if you’re using a PC or a Mac then pySerial can bridge the gap. You can download from its developers website, which also features a host of information about running the software on various different operating systems — make sure that you have a copy of Python on your system, too. You can find more information on reading and writing data to Arduino via pySerial at the, but be warned that this is a fairly advanced technique. If you’re already well-versed in Python, then you’ll likely have a good handle on how to get it up and running — but if you’re relatively new to either the language or Arduino, there are gentler Interested in Arduino but not sure where to begin? Here are some of our best Arduino projects for beginners to get started with!
That being said, Python is a very good fit for use in conjunction with Arduino. It’s a coding language designed to be intuitive, and as such is often recommended as a stepping stone to other forms of coding.What’s more, if you ever happen to branch out from Arduino to the similar Raspberry Pi, you’ll find that your Python experience will come in very handy.
Have you had success using other programming languages or IDEs with your Arduino? Let us know about it in the comments section below. Image Credits: Via Shutterstock Explore more about:,.