Seeed Studio Grove Beginner Kit for Arduino - STEAM Teaching Starter Kit All-in-One With UNO Compatible Board, 10 Sensors, 12 Projects and Free Course

I bought this kit to help learn about Arduino. The Grove Beginner Kit is a really neat little box that has a lot of goodies to get started learning how basic sensors and inout/output devices work, and how they interface with a microcontroller. The box has everything needed. Just attach it to a USB power source. When the box arrives everything is attached on one circuit card with an Arduino Uno compatible unit in the middle. There is already a program loaded into processor to demonstrate the various devices on the board.Instructions on how to get started creating your own Arduino sketches are printed on the box. You can program in the Arduino integrated development environment and download additional support as needed from Seeed Studio. Just plug in the Grove Beginner Kit to PC/Mac/Linux USB with the software and you’re good to go.As you customize your sketches, you can separate the peripherals in the kit from the main board and attach them as needed with the included qiic connector cables. You can package a finished project with just the processor and peripherals required.Not too much experience and skill is required, but a little adult supervision of younger experimenters will help them to avoid getting stuck and frustrated.

I've been tinkering with Arduino in its various offshoots and incarnations, over the past 15 years, and this little kit caught my eye, so I decided to give it a go. I really like the mix of sensors & outputs, which put this device almost on par with the Arduino Esplora, in terms of out-of-the-box usability. My only minor gripe is over the lack of an RGB led. Lessening the sting, somewhat, is the welcome inclusion of an OLED display. Especially nice is the fact that while all of the components are attached, as shipped, the board is preconfigured in a reasonable way that allows beginners to focus on coding, without worrying about learning electronics at the same time. I feel this would be an excellent courseware item for teaching entry level microcontrollers.ADDENDUM: New hobbyists should be warned that Grove-friendly sensors are often much more expensive than their generic Arduino counterparts. Even Grove cables are expensive enough that those needing more cables would get their best value out of purchasing another Grove Beginner's Kit.

When I initially ordered it for my son, I ordered an Arduino to work with it, but once we got it, I realized it has an Arduino built in! Great kit to explore different interfaces with super easy connections.

I ordered this because I got these for my classroom, or so I thought. I didn't realize the Arduino is built-in. It turns out the ones I bought for school, which are more expensive, need an Arduino attached to the pins in the center. This product works great. You only need the jumpers if you disconnect the parts from the board. The reason I took one star off is the temperature/humidity sensor was a bit of a pain. It shipped with a sensor with a black cover. You have to dig through a bunch of tabs to find the code to run this one. I found the same issue with the ones I bought at school. Once you add the library. You also have to take one section out and replace it with another. It took a while to get everything straight. I would think the company would make a separate library option or something to streamline this process. I wrote my own instructions for my students because most would not have figured out how to get this sensor working. I like this version better than the one that needs a separate Arduino and the price is great. I would like to see Seeed and/or Arduino either ship these with the sensor it was designed for or adjust the instructions and library to accommodate this change. I definitely recommend this product, though.

For begginers, this board is good for whoever wants to focus on programming first and not physical connections

It work as advertised. Simple and complete. Source code so you can see what the designers did to make it work!

I love this setup. It's great for learning how to code and after one learns what they can, this whole board is set up to be able to be disassembled into separate shields for creating your own, custom designed microcontroller. The grove connectors are compatible with the single wire DuPont connectors as well. This unit costs less than if one was to purchase the shields separately, making this a good bargain for advanced users needing small shields for their work. I can't believe how easy it is to use once I got the coding skills down. And the instruction manual was of great value in learning. Great for ages 8 to 80!

Within my first hour or two of toying with this, the display went out, leaving me blind to confirm what commands were bringing what action, unless there was a blink or a sound. That said, I got the software all loaded up and as far as I can tell it started off working as described (I am a novice, admittedly, but the software setup was super easy).In the Arduino software, I clicked the forward arrow to upload the example code from: File>Examples>07.Display>RowColumnHeight after using the check mark button to verify that the code was OK (or whatever that check does). It makes the buzzer go off in a high pitch, so I unplugged the USB to make the painful sound stop so I could learn what I did right or wrong. I plugged it back in and quickly ran the "eprom_clear" code from the menu examples, after which the sound stopped. Unfortunately, the display screen also stopped. I am not sure if this happened before or after I ran that clear code, but I can't seem to remedy what I did with more code from the examples, so I'm assuming it is somehow burned out. I am a college-educated person, but with a learning disability. I got the codes to work, mostly, but I am not understanding the concepts of this at all like I think I should be, after about five hours of reading and tinkering. I have only a base knowledge of HTML coding, and an extremely base knowledge of circuits (really not much at all) from a few small soldering projects for musical instruments where I just followed the instructions. It is easy to get it to do a few small things with only a minimal learning curve, but I think they could add maybe 5-10 bucks to the price and throw in a book with a video link. The support materials you get linked to online are not in a format that works for my learning style, so I'm having to summon a lot more motivation to get through this challenge. With the display out, this kit is worth substantially less to me. I can see why that typically expensive component is in a kit that seems so affordable. This is the sort of kit you want to buy by the case for a classroom, with an understanding between you and the supplier that you will return any units that didn't work or went out very quickly. That way a few issues like this won't distract you from the cool idea of this thing. I don't plan to return this, as it may have been my fault (for what though? Gently unplugging a loud device?), and I'm sure I can use the remaining parts that work. I'm just dissapointed at the idea that I have this thing for learning which is not teaching me anything yet. Clearly I don't know what I am doing, but that is why I got this kit, which is cool to play with, but if you are getting this to self-teach yourself, this might not be the ideal choice for that particular learning application. This would be much better with a teacher there to guide you away from making the mistakes that might be more obvious to an expert.

As in the picture

The product arrived on time and the product delivered as per specification