Although it is possible to use bare controller chips with the right skills to create surrounding electronics and your own PCBs, we will keep things simple in this book by using controller modules. These tend to come in packaged and easy-to-use systems. The next set of photos shows a few of them:
A selection of controller modules
The preceding photo shows a selection of some of my favorite controllers. They can all be powered via a USB connection of some kind, and for all but the Raspberry Pi, programmed over the same connection. They all have easy-to-use connectors for making use of their IO pins. For each of the controllers, what ...
