Beginning Arduino

Mike McRoberts discovered the Arduino in 2008 while looking for ways to connect a temperature sensor to a PC to make a cloud detector for his other hobby—astrophotography. After a bit of research, the Arduino seemed like the obvious choice, and the cloud detector was successfully made, quickly and cheaply. Mike’s fascination with the Arduino had begun. Since then he has gone on to make countless projects using the Arduino. He had also founded an Arduino starter kit and component online business called Earthshine Electronics. His next project is to use an Arduino-based circuit to send a high altitude balloon up to the edge of space to take stills and video for the heck of it, with the help of the guys from the U.K. High Altitude Society and CUSF. Mike’s hobby of electronics began as a child when the 100-in-1 electronics kits from Radio Shack made up his Christmas present list. He started programming as a hobby when he obtained a Sinclair ZX81 computer as a teenager. Since then, he’s never been without a computer. Recently, he’s become a Mac convert. He is a member of London Hackspace and the Orpington Astronomical Society and can regularly be found contributing to the Arduino Forum. He also likes to lurk on IRC in the Arduino, high altitude and london-hack-space channels (as “earthshine”), and on Twitter @TheArduinoGuy. When he is not messing around with Arduinos or running Earthshine Electronics, he likes to indulge in astronomy, astrophotography, motorcycling, and sailing.