Arduino and Microcontrollers Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering Arduino concepts, board components, sensors, actuators, circuit topologies, programming syntax, and real-world applications.

Arduino

An open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software, created at the Ivrea Interaction Design Institute as a tool for students without a background in electronics or programming to perform fast prototyping.

Microcontroller

A small computation engine featuring analog and digital input/output capabilities that makes a decision or monitors a system to automate repetitive tasks.

Dennis Ritchie

Known as the Father of C, he created the C Language in the early 1970s at Bell Labs.

Bjarne Stroustrup

Developer who created C++ in the 1980s by adding object-oriented programming features to C.

Conductors

Materials that permit electricity to flow freely through them, such as steel, copper, and gold.

Insulators

Materials that block, resist, or restrict the flow of electricity, such as wood planks and rubber.

Digital Pins

Pins on an Arduino board that can be configured as input or output pins; as output, they act as a power supply source, and as input, they read digital signals.

Pin 13 LED

The only built-in actuator/indicator light embedded directly into the Arduino board, used for debugging code or running a first blink sketch.

Power LED

A small onboard indicator light verifying that the Arduino board is actively receiving power.

ATmega328P

The prominent black rectangular chip featuring $28$ pins that serves as the microcontroller brain of the Arduino Uno board.

Analog Input Pins (A0-A5)

Dedicated pins on the Arduino board that read variable voltage signals from analog sensors using the analogRead() command.

5V & GND Pins

Terminals utilized to provide stable $5\,\text{V}$ power and ground ($0\,\text{V}$ reference/negative path) to external circuits.

Power Port (DC Barrel Jack)

A port used to power the Arduino when disconnected from a computer USB port, safely accepting external voltages ranging between $7\,\text{V}$ and $12\,\text{V}$.

TX & RX LEDs

Data transfer indicator lights where TX stands for Transmit and RX stands for Receive, flashing rapidly whenever the board exchanges data with a computer.

USB Port

A standard printer-style USB port used to upload programs from the Arduino IDE software onto the microcontroller and double as a power source.

Reset Button

A physical switch that sends a logical pulse to clear the memory pointer, forcing the Arduino board to rerun its current program from the first line of code.

Breadboard

A specialized board with rows of internal connection holes used to construct temporary electronic circuits without soldering.

Bus Strips

Long horizontal rails along the top and bottom edge of a breadboard (marked with + and -) used for power distribution and ground rails.

Socket Strips

Vertical columns of holes (labeled a-j) in the center area of a breadboard where individual components are placed.

DIP Support

The center isolation groove dividing the top and bottom socket strips on a breadboard.

Jumper Wires

Conductive wires used to establish connections between components on the breadboard and the Arduino pins, available as Male-to-Male, Male-to-Female, and Female-to-Female.

Capacitors

Two-terminal passive electrical components that store and release electrical energy to stabilize supplied voltage near motors or sensors.

Diode

A polarized component ensuring power flows in a single direction to protect circuits from high-voltage or current spikes, with an Anode connecting to higher energy and a Cathode marked with a stripe.

Resistor

A passive electronic component that creates electrical resistance to control, limit, and reduce current and voltage flow, protecting components like LEDs.

Gas Sensor (MQ4)

A specialized sensor module capable of measuring Methane ($\text{CH}_4$) and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) concentrations in the air from $200$ to $10,000\,\text{ppm}$, outputting an analog voltage signal between $0$ and $5\,\text{V}$.

IR Receiver Sensor (TSOP)

An electronic device designed to detect and measure infrared radiation over short distances, commonly tracking commands sent by television remotes.

Optocoupler

A device that bridges two isolated circuits together without establishing a shared power connection by using an internal LED that shines on a photoreceptor to close an isolated switch.

PIR Sensor (Passive Infra-Red)

A motion detector featuring a pyroelectric module that generates energy when exposed to infrared heat radiation emitted naturally by human or animal bodies.

Photoresistor (Photocell)

A light-sensitive variable resistor whose internal resistance drops or rises dynamically depending on the ambient light brightness hitting its face.

DC Motors

Units that convert electrical energy directly into mechanical rotational force when current is applied.

H-bridge

An integrated module or discrete circuit used to manipulate and flip the directional flow of voltage applied to a motor load, reversing shaft spin between clockwise and counterclockwise.

LED (Light Emitting Diode)

A polarized diode indicator that illuminates when electrical current flows in the correct direction, featuring a longer Anode leg (Positive) and a shorter Cathode leg (Negative).

RGB LED

A multi-colored light source with four pins (Red, Green, Blue, and a common cathode) that blends custom color radiations by modulating individual brightness via PWM signals.

Vibration Motors

Very small coreless DC motors that spin off-center weights to provide tactile silent notifications to a user.

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)

An alphanumeric display interface used to show written messages, with a standard size featuring $2$ rows containing $16$ characters each.

Piezo

A polarized sound element used to track physical structural vibrations or produce audible tone notifications and buzzes.

Series Circuit

An electrical layout with only one single path for current to flow, where a broken component breaks the entire circuit.

Parallel Circuit

An electrical layout featuring multiple independent pathways for current, allowing other components to stay powered if one breaks.

Program

A set of logical instructions written in a formal programming language that a microcontroller can read and execute.

void setup()

A core Arduino program function that runs exactly one single time at power-up to establish hardware definitions like pinMode.

void loop()

A core Arduino program function that runs continuously and repeats indefinitely as long as the Arduino board receives electrical current.

int

A variable data type that stores whole numbers without decimals.

float

A variable data type that stores numbers requiring decimal fractions.

char

A variable data type that stores a single text letter or symbol character enclosed in single quotes.

boolean

A variable data type that stores only logic values consisting of true or false.

pinMode(pin, mode)

A primary code function that programs a specific digital pin to behave as either an INPUT or an OUTPUT.

digitalWrite(pin, value)

A primary code function that drives a digital pin to a specific voltage state, setting HIGH for $5\,\text{V}$ or LOW for $0\,\text{V}$.

delay(milliseconds)

A primary code function that pauses execution of code for a specific time interval measured in milliseconds ($1000\,\text{ms} = 1\,\text{s}$).

UN Sustainable Development Goal 9

Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure; linked to writing microcontroller code loops that scale into smart infrastructure solutions like automated traffic grids, smart cities, and factory robotics.