C H A P T E R  10

Hardware Design

If you want to extend the capabilities of your Arduino, and you find there’s not a shield for that yet, don’t give up hope. You can design and build your own Arduino hardware. Maybe you want to connect a new device to your Arduino, or maybe you need to completely design your Arduino from the ground up, including connections for the new things you absolutely must have and dropping all non-essential circuitry. Either way, you’re going to have to deal with some aspects of hardware design.

Let’s start modestly and proceed to greater things. You begin like a child, playing with toys and imitating others. Next you look at some more complex techniques for both documenting your ideas and turning them into realities. You look at some design tools for extending your Arduino’s capabilities and then move on to designing your own stand-alone Arduino-compatible devices.