The Maker's Manual

Chapter 17. Expanding Arduino

Now that you understand the basics of Arduino, you can have fun and use it for many different purposes. Many ideas can be found online, and some even come with full documentation on how to reproduce them. In Chapter 16, you saw that an Arduino is capable of interacting with sensors and actuators; let’s have a more in-depth look at these components.

Reading the World: Sensors

A sensor is a component that allows you to measure a physical quantity or detect an event. The simple button you used in earlier exercises is also a simple sensor, which detects whether someone is pushing it. There are many different kinds of sensors. How do they work?

Thermistors

Thermistors (Figure 17-1) are based on the premise that some ...