Arduino Kit for 12 Year Old

n30_mkii · 28 Nov 2017 at 15:51

Hi i'm looking for a Christmas present for my nephew to get him looking at a little coding and basic electronics. He has done a little coding at school (only simple stuff) but don't want to throw him too far into the deep end. He's got a good attention span and I can see him really enjoying working with a kit.

I've stumbled across a kit called "Elegoo UNO R3 Project" which seems to have everything to get started including an arduino clone, and there are a couple of others by Elegoo over on the rainforest site which look pretty comprehensive without costing too much.

He has a tablet already, but just wondering if these can be programmed easily enough from a tablet or if a laptop is a necessity?

I'll do some more reading, but as I've not done much in this space currently any information or guidance would be appreciated.

Em3bbs · 28 Nov 2017 at 16:06

What tablet is it? If Android then you can get a USB OTG cable and then use that rather than a laptop. Although I'd recommend picking up a cheap bluetooth keyboard if you do that.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Program-your-Arduino-with-a-Android-device/

n30_mkii · 28 Nov 2017 at 16:26

Em3bbs said:
What tablet is it? If Android then you can get a USB OTG cable and then use that rather than a laptop. Although I'd recommend picking up a cheap bluetooth keyboard if you do that.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Program-your-Arduino-with-a-Android-device/

Yeah he has a nexus tablet I believe so Android

Pho · 28 Nov 2017 at 16:43

Different Arduinos come with different USB-to-serial chips so the above solution may or may not work depending on whether it's supported by the tablet/those apps. I believe old cheaper Arduino clones used a Chinese CH340, older official Arduino's/better clones used an FTDI chip and newer Arduino's R3s use an ATMEGA16U2 chip.

A quick look at the first Elegoo I found on Amazon looks like an ATMEG16U2 chip - all three seem to have their own unique shape. This is it labeled on another board, to help you identify them - first label on the left:

A laptop will likely be a far better experience than a tablet with a keyboard though.