A Review of the Grove Beginner Kit for Arduino

Anyone interested in developing electronics hardware and dabbling in IoT is recommended to start with Arduino projects. This is because the average Arduino kit opens your mind up to the possibilities of building unique ideas from scratch with just a board, soldering tools, and electronic components. The Grove Beginner Kit is one such tool that helps you get started with Arduino. Here, its features, capabilities, and applications will be discussed in detail.

The Features of the Grove Beginner Kit

The Grove beginner kit comes with the following items:

  • An Arduino UNO Compatible board (ATmega320p)
  • A micro USB cable
  • Grove cables
  • LED light
  • Buzzer
  • OLED Display
  • Buttons
  • Rotary Potentiometer
  • Light sensor
  • Temperature sensors
  • Humidity sensors
  • Air Pressure sensor
  • 3-axis Accelerator
  • Seeeduino Lotus – The Arduino compatible board

The LED and lighting features are simple modules that provide light when assembled with the Arduino board. The light sensor functions y detecting the intensity of ambient light while the temperature sensor provides support for detecting temperature levels of surroundings. The humidity sensor measures humidity level and air pressure sensors measure air pressure.

Other important components within the kit such as the OLED display serve as a display or visualization screen which does not consume much energy. The buzzer produces a buzzing sound while buttons and cables are supportive components for controlling your project.

Getting Started with the Grove Beginner Kit

The Grove Beginner Kit also comes with instructions on how to get started and different Arduino projects you could accomplish using the kit. To get started, you will need to install the Arduino integrated development environment (IDE) on your laptop or desktop computer. You will need a functional Arduino IDE for installing and configuring every component you intend to use for your projects.

Once the Arduino IDE is installed, the next step is installing the USB driver which connects Arduino and your project to your computer. Once connected, you can now create new files for your programming requirements. As stated earlier, the Grove beginner kit includes simplistic steps for getting started. This means you do not need to have any prior knowledge of Arduino and electronics to use this kit.

The Grover kit also comes with a dedicated wiki page for anyone interested in learning the basics of electronics, programming, and configuring DIY electronics or IoT projects. Within this dedicated page, information such as definitions of a digital signal, code analysis, etc. will be provided. You can also take advantage of the lesson guides about developing your projects with the Grove beginner kit.

Projects You Can Do with the Grove Beginner Kit

Experienced electronics and hardware technicians or hobbyists will have some idea of what can be developed using the components of the Grove kit. But for beginners, here is a list of exciting projects to get you started with DIY electronics:

  1. Blinking LED – The blinking LED project involves getting the LED light to come on and off at the touch of a button or in intervals. This means you can get the LED light to light up at intervals, at the touch of a button, or increase the intensity of the light it produces. The components you will need for this project include the Seeeduino Lotus, the Grove LED lights, button, and cables. The software code for the project can be found within the wiki page; you can simply copy and paste the code into your Arduino IDE or study the analysis behind the code to learn more about programming with Arduino.
  2. Buzzing the Buzzer – The Buzzer is an output module that produces a buzzing sound when configured using the components within the Grove kit. You can choose to modulate the sound it produces in diverse ways according to your needs. The components you will need for this project include the Seeeduino Lotus, the Buzzer, grove cables, and the button. The potentiometer is also required for adjusting the volume that comes from the buzzer. To accomplish these tasks, you will need to program the buzzer, potentiometer, and the button. You can also find the information or code needed to program the buzzer within the wiki guide provided for the Grove beginners kit.
  3. Smart Lighting – The inclusion of a light sensor means you can develop a LED light that automatically lights up once placed in a dark place. This means, our Arduino project must be able to sense the intensity of ambient light and send the information to Arduino which lights up the LED to illuminate the room with adequate intensity. For this project, you will need the Seeeduino Lotus, Grove LED light, light sensor, and cables. The code for the smart lighting project can be found within the kit’s wiki page.
  4. Visualizing Data on OLED – The OLED display provided with the Grove kit was included to help you take readings from the sensors included in the kit. Thus, if you hook up the temperature or humidity sensors, you will need to take readings and the OLED display provides the avenue for doing this. The components you will need for this project include the Seeeduino Lotus, OLED display, grove cable. Note that these components are needed solely for integrating the OLED display into your project. To read temperatures, you will also need to configure the temperature sensor. You can find the codes needed for this project within the wiki page including the description of each snippet of code.
  5. Temperature and Humidity Detection Device – The Grove kit for beginners comes with the components you need to create a mini-weather station. The station will be able to detect humidity and temperature while displaying its readings on the OLED display. The tools you will need for this project are the Seeeduino Lotus, OLED, temperature and humidity sensor, and Grove cables. This is a more advanced Arduino project but you can find the details for it within the wiki page. The temperature and humidity detection device also helps you expand your knowledge of combining multiple sensors onto a single board.

The Grove Beginners Kit cost approximately $20 which is very affordable for students and anyone interested in learning about electronics, IoT, and programming hardware.

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