Preface

My Arduino journey started after watching Elise Huard present her talk, “The internet of things,” at Rails Underground in the summer of 2009. Following the conference, I immediately purchased a copy of Massimo Banzi’s Getting Started with Arduino (O’Reilly, 2008), which I read from cover to cover on the train back to where I was staying.

Shortly afterwards, I purchased my first Arduino and started playing, experimenting, and building small projects. My first major project was an obstacle-avoidance robot, which I presented at the 2010 Scottish Ruby conference in Edinburgh, Scotland.

I’ve had a lifelong interest in underwater vehicles and the marine environment, and following the conference I started work on an Arduino-controlled underwater remote-operated vehicle (ROV), which I duly presented at the 2011 Scottish Ruby conference.

Since then, I’ve toured the UK and Ireland displaying my ROV at a number of Maker Faires, where it has generated much interested and discussion.

I’m one of the founding members of Aberduino, a hack space based in Aberdeen, Scotland, where we produce installations for various events.

Other Arduino-based projects I’ve worked on include the development of a medical training aid and helping with the Wikispeed project, an open source car.

I continue to work with underwater vehicles and am actively developing a new Arduino-based underwater ROV that can be distributed as a kit.

MARTIN EVANS