The best Arduino projects

The Arduino mi­cro­con­troller can be pro­grammed for almost anything – from elec­tron­ic dice to drawing robots, from sound sensitive fairy lights to an in­ter­ac­tive LED dome, and from light trackers to weather stations. The range is creative, and the best projects promise a whole lot of fun. This article will look at a range of the best Arduino projects, which you can either try to create yourself, or simply admire – perhaps you’ll get some in­spi­ra­tion for an original project of your own.

The first Arduino board was produced in Italy in 2005 in small quan­ti­ties to introduce design students to the use and pos­si­bil­i­ties of mi­cro­con­troller pro­gram­ming. The emerging maker movement, a movement which united DIY tech en­thu­si­asts, welcomed the project with keen interest, being in­ex­pen­sive, easy to use, and yet extremely versatile. More than ten years later, the circuit boards are available in a wide variety of designs.

Today, the boards are available in a wide variety of designs. The classic, Arduino Uno, is com­pa­ra­ble in size to a cigarette pack, while the Arduino Nano is around the same size as a quarter. Further versions which are sig­nif­i­cant­ly smaller or larger are also available, and offer the right hardware for almost every kind of design.

What they all have in common is that they have a mi­cro­con­troller and several analog and digital inputs and outputs. The board can be connected to the computer via a USB port, and program code can be loaded onto it. This code is written with the open source de­vel­op­ment Arduino IDE and is es­sen­tial­ly a sim­pli­fied variant of the C or C++ code languages. Several pin strips mounted on the board allow the con­nec­tion of LEDs, monitors, measuring in­stru­ments, motors, and countless other devices, which can then be managed by the con­troller.

Arduino is often compared to the Raspberry Pi because both devices are compact circuit boards, which can be used in countless elec­tron­ic projects. While Arduino is a mi­cro­con­troller, the Raspberry Pi is a single board computer. You can learn more about the dif­fer­ences between Arduino and Raspberry Pi here.

The first version of the Arduino was Uno. This mi­cro­con­troller inspired countless projects, probably because it offers an ideal balance between compact size and a wide range of functions. Here are eight examples of Arduino project ideas, ranging from beginner level to pro­fes­sion­al pro­gram­ming.

A simple idea, but one which is ideal to get you started in the world of Arduino mi­cro­con­trollers: an elec­tron­ic dice. At the push of a button, you’ll activate a random generator that uses the lights to give you a number between 1 and 6. The tutorial for the elec­tron­ic cube explains all steps well, and only a few parts are needed for its con­struc­tion.

An Arduino project idea inspired by the Corona pandemic is the social dis­tanc­ing sensor, suitable for Arduino novices. An ul­tra­son­ic sensor connected to the mi­cro­con­troller ensures that the LED lights up whenever a person ap­proach­es within 50cm. If the distance increases further, the LED turns off. To program the Arduino Uno project you only need a few lines of code. For pro­gram­ming beginners, the code is also available online, making this Arduino project perfectly suitable for re­pro­duc­tion at home.

An Arduino project that can be created in a short amount of time, and using only a handful of parts is the fully automatic light tracker. Two light dependent resistors (LDRs) are mounted on a servo motor so that a plate running ver­ti­cal­ly between the sensors provides separate fields of vision. Both resistors measure light at regular intervals. A code on the Arduino board causes the rotation of the servo whenever one resistor receives more light, causing the rotator to move, until the same amount of light is measured again by both resistors, when the rotator returns to its original position. As a result, the con­struc­tion follows the beam of a flash­light, for example, con­stant­ly and smoothly.

Ideal for the summer, this cool box connects to your smart­phone via Bluetooth, and follows you around. The con­struc­tion of this cooler is more time consuming than the first two projects, and requires more materials. You’ll need some ex­pe­ri­ence before at­tempt­ing this – but it’s a great project to check out all the same to see where Arduino projects can go.

A stylish Arduino project idea for home is to create a digital LED hourglass. A built-in LED matrix is used to simulate falling sand grains. The code needed to make the LED hourglass work is a bit more com­pli­cat­ed, but can be easily un­der­stood and down­loaded if needed. A simple cardboard case hides the Arduino circuitry and ensures this LED clock is an eye-catcher.

Another Arduino idea aimed at advanced hobbyists is the remote con­trolled car. To operate the gadget a smart­phone app is required. This has been published by the developer of the Bluetooth car in the Google PlayStore. Apple smart­phone users need to enable extended user access on their iPhone using a jailbreak for the app. This Arduino Uno project will keep you en­ter­tained while building and guar­an­tees fun times when racing your Arduino car.

A drawing robot shows off the im­pres­sive Arduino project ideas that ex­pe­ri­enced tech­nol­o­gy en­thu­si­asts come up with. The robot produces vector graphics and raster drawings stored on the computer. Creating this robot requires not only pro­fes­sion­al knowledge of Arduino, but also numerous com­po­nents and a great deal of time – with im­pres­sive results:

This award-winning Arduino Uno project is a tri­an­gu­lar wooden dome with a total of 120 in­ter­ac­tive light surfaces. When they sense your hand, they change color and play sounds. How much planning and work went into this Arduino project is explained in the tutorial for the LED dome. This video shows the beautiful dome, and demon­strates its light and sound features:

The smaller version of the Arduino Uno, the Arduino Nano, is often used for projects where space for the board itself is very limited. Like its larger coun­ter­part, it is based on the powerful ATmega328 mi­cro­con­troller from the US company Atmel, and it can be used for simple and complex projects alike.

A simple, beginner-friendly project which is a bit of a crowd pleaser. A built-in mi­cro­phone measures the intensity of music being played, and transmits this in­for­ma­tion to the Arduino Nano. The Nano stim­u­lates a luminous LED strip, so that it flashes in colors to match the music.

Another ingenious little creation you can build quickly and using few materials is the lie detector. Of course, this Arduino project cannot guarantee whether someone is lying or not, it just measures the elec­tri­cal con­duc­tiv­i­ty of their skin – this is how lie detectors worked in the past, and although they are not 100% reliable, it is still a fun project to try out.

It’s difficult to imagine smart­phones without fin­ger­print sensors. But you can use an Arduino Nano to control a fin­ger­print sensor. For this purpose, a suitable sensor is connected with the mi­cro­con­troller. An in­te­grat­ed display tells you whether a fin­ger­print is reg­is­tered in the system. If it is, the system launches with a greeting. If not, the screen is not released. The Arduino Nano project is easy to implement using only a few com­po­nents and is suitable for beginners.

This Arduino project is a good in­tro­duc­tion to robotics. The mini robot follows a pre-defined and pre-pro­grammed route, but can also be extended, for example, by a radio remote control or a gripper, or even GPS.

The next project is another robot, but with building materials which many will recognize from their childhood: Lego blocks. The controls for the robotic spider run through your smart­phone – a nice step up from beginner projects, without getting too advanced.

Arduino projects for home im­prove­ment can simplify our lives. Wouldn't it be con­ve­nient to no longer worry about watering your plants? This Arduino Nano project uses a tem­per­a­ture sensor to determine how much water your plants require. A connected water pump provides suf­fi­cient watering when needed. The automated plant watering system is suitable for more advanced Arduino hobbyists, but does not require too much effort.

This project is a great example of the many possible ap­pli­ca­tions of the Arduino Nano for your home: turn your mi­cro­con­troller into a weather station with just a few con­nec­tors and a screen, which can measure tem­per­a­ture and humidity, and displays the time. This Arduino project can also be expanded to collect ad­di­tion­al data on air pressure, wind con­di­tions, UV index, and rain. The project requires several Arduino and some other elec­tron­ic com­po­nents – but careful prepa­ra­tion and in­vest­ment into the parts is worth it, given the results of this project!