QUESTION

Although I'm personally not a fan of the whole Arduino thing, you will find it's an easy way to get started with embedded development and there's lots of information out there. For the same reason, the next step is often the Raspberry Pi for "bigger" projects.

However, if you want to get a bit deeper into embedded rather than stretch upwards to bigger projects, I can recommend Energia. This is an Arduino IDE port to work on TI's MSP430 (and other) processors. You can then shift your Arduino sketches into Code Composer Studio and take advantage of a more powerful IDE with JTAG debugging, etc.

I like to think of Arduino as an ecosystem, with it's IDE and all the shields and libraries etc. rather than a single product.

It has essentially become, in my opinion, the hardware version of a spreadsheet (which is software consisting of charting/visualisations, analytics, macros and data entry options).

My reasoning is that when you want to carry out some initial analysis for a project, you are most likely to start with a spreadsheet to test out your analytical model, than go out and develop custom software to achieve the same purpose. This is especially true if you are doing the analysis for the first time and you are not familiar with what you are trying to achieve. Starting off with advanced analytics software or complex databases is more often than not, like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut and you can quickly get delayed or hit problems due to lack of familiarity or community support.

So while spreadsheet software might not have the performance and speed, it is certainly very versatile and you are able to use if for many different projects or assignments etc.

However, if your spreadsheet model becomes more complicated or if you distribute your spreadsheet model to others, you will quickly hit problems. It is then that other types of software products becomes more useful and valuable to you, or you may even consider developing your own customised software.

In my experience, the same can be said about Arduino.

It is a very good starting point for evaluating a proof of concept, for example. I often find that it is the quickest way to verify that a new sensor you've just purchased actually works properly, simply because of the abundance of libraries available. Arduino is also very useful for reuse especially when looking to capture data for a specific task etc. Setup is quick and relatively easy.

After Arduino, what's next?

Well, much like moving on from a spreadsheet, your choice of options depends on the specific requirements of your project or intended product.

From an entrepreneur's perspective, cost and speed to deliver an outcome are very important criteria. Also availability of resource to actually deliver the work. So you wouldn't necessarily pick something that only a select few know about, unless you have very specific reasons for that choice of hardware.

... and funnily enough this is where a spreadsheet model becomes very handy in helping you formulate that decision, as it will be based on multiple hard and soft criterion.

I think the above suggestions are great. There are so many arduino examples available, it provides an easy learning path for most applications.

I would also recommend Cypress PSoC Creator - it is generally less expensive than arduino, generally more powerful and provides more flexible hardware interfacing options. But it does not have as many examples to learn from.

I think it really depends on what you intend to do and what product you are looking to make.  You mention Industrial, so that could mean Industrial IoT or Industrial Automation playing into the SCADA area or something entirely different.  I does not sound like you are getting an Engineering degree, so I suspect you are looking to stay at a higher level with regards to software development.

However, as far as Arduino is concerned, that is an excellent place to start and allows you to get experience working with libraries from other sources.  If you are looking to get closer to the hardware then you could import your Arduino Sketches into Atmel Studio and use that as a proper IDE.  Also, with the SAMD chips you could even go further and use some of the GNU tools and learn to program the board from a much lower level.

Not knowing your intentions then it really is difficult to create a proper answer.

Hi Rachel, I’d definitely agree with Arduino being a good starting point, and also that business, entrepreneurship and embedded development are a great combination!

There’s been a similar post recently about how to get started with Arduinos in case that helps, and again I’d recommend Simon Monk’s books if you’re new to all this.

All the best with your studies!

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