Honest breakdowns of Arduino boards, sensors, tools, and the rest of the workbench pile.
Under $50, the USB logic analyzer market is basically one chip in a dozen different plastic shells. Here is which one to actually buy, what the “24MHz” on the box really means, and the one accessory that decides the purchase.
Capacity tells you how long your robot runs. C-rating and internal resistance tell you whether it runs at all. Here is how LiPo, NiMH, and 18650 actually behave when four gearmotors stall at once, and which one belongs in your build.
The Pico 2 beats the Arduino Uno on nearly every spec — 150 MHz dual-core, 520 KB of RAM, and PIO state machines the Uno has no answer for. It is still the wrong first board for most beginners, and here is exactly why.
A 9V battery is the fastest way to kill a working robot. Here are three battery packs that actually hold their voltage under load — and how to tell which one your build needs.
Three multimeters at three price points, judged on the four specs that actually matter for Arduino and robotics work. One of them cannot measure current at all — and it is not the cheap one.
Pin count is the least interesting difference between the Arduino Mega and the Uno, and it is the only one most guides discuss. Here are the three constraints that actually justify a Mega — and the cheap fix for the one that does not.
The L298N is the default motor driver in beginner robotics and, by modern standards, a genuinely inefficient chip. Here is what it does well, the voltage drop and 5V jumper that bite people, and when to switch to a TB6612FNG instead.
Most beginner soldering kits are one decent iron surrounded by filler. Here is what actually decides whether a kit is worth buying — temperature control, thermal recovery, and the solder in the box — plus three picks, including the cheap upgrade that fixes more joints than a new iron would.
The SG90 is in every starter kit and still costs about two dollars, but plastic gears and a 500-700 mA stall current set hard limits on what it can do. Here’s exactly where it still wins, where it fails, and when the metal-gear MG90S is worth the swap.
One question settles the choice between a stepper, a servo, and a DC gearmotor almost every time: does the shaft need to know where it is? Here is how to answer it, and which specific part to buy for each case.