Arduino Starter Kit - Begin the journey in the microcontroller world

Here we are, the Starter Kit of Arduino is arrived today, and I decide to post a little explanation of every single project included in this box.
In the next days and weeks I'll follow this list of small projects and I'll do some post with some shit like photo/video and my impressions, everyone of these projects is from the book included in the kit (Arduino Projects Book):

01 GET TO KNOW YOUR TOOLS an introduction to the concepts you'll need to use this kit
02 SPACESHIP INTERFACE design to control panel for your startship
03 LOVE-O-METER measure how hot-blooded you are
04 COLOR MIXING LAMP produce any color with a lamp that uses light as an input
05 MOOD CUE clue people in to how you're doing
06 LIGHT THEREMIN create a musical instrument you play by waving your hands
07 KEYBOARD INSTRUMENT play music and make some noise with this keyboard
08 DIGITAL HOURGLASS a light-up hourglass that can stop you from working too much
09 MOTORIZED PINWHEEL a color wheel that will have your head spinning
10 ZOETROPE create a mechanical animation you can play forward or reverse
11 CRYSTAL BALL a mystical tour to answer all your tough question
12 KNOCK LOCK tap out the secret code to open the door
13 TOUCHY-FEEL LAMP a lamp that responds to your touch
14 TWEAK THE ARDUINO LOGO control your personal computer from your Arduino
15 HACKING BUTTONS create a master control for all your devices!

Inside the box there are some standard elettronic components, here the list directly from the Arduino website:

1 Arduino Projects Book (170 pages)
1 Arduino UNO board rev.3
1 USB cable
1 Breadboard
1 Easy-to-assemble wooden base
1 9v battery snap
70 Solid core jumper wires
2 Stranded jumper wires
6 Photoresistor [VT90N2 LDR]
3 Potentiometer 10kilohm
10 Pushbuttons
1 Temperature sensor [TMP36]
1 Tilt sensor
1 alphanumeric LCD (16x2 characters)
1 LED (bright white)
1 LED (RGB)
8 LEDs (red)
8 LEDs (green)
8 LEDs (yellow)
3 LEDs (blue)
1 Small DC motor 6/9V
1 Small servo motor
1 Piezo capsule [PKM17EPP-4001-B0]
1 H-bridge motor driver [L293D]
2 Optocouplers [4N35]
5 Transistor [BC547]
2 Mosfet transistors [IRF520]
5 Capacitors 100nF
3 Capacitors 100uF
5 Capacitor 100pF
5 Diodes [1N4007]
3 Transparent gels (red, green, blue)
1 Male pins strip (40x1)
20 Resistors 220 ohm
5 Resistors 560 ohm
5 Resistors 1 kilohm
5 Resistors 4.7 kilohm
20 Resistors 10 kilohm
5 Resistors 1 megohm
5 Resistors 10 megohm

Today I only built the wooden base, in which you must screw the arduino board to it, and there is immediately a problem: they do not include in the box the 3 screws needed for this passage.
Luckily I used to built all my PCs, so I have a lot of little screw and screw pins and I used some of it for the Arduino board but they don't fit perfectly: as you can see in the next photos, I don't put a screw in the hole close to power input, this because the screw simply do not enter without touching the power input, so I decide to not put this screw. I hope to not burn everything on the first lighting, but I'm pretty sure there will be no problem because no internal connection was even close to the screw hole.

EDIT: I found the lost screw (they was in the box of electrical component, my fault), so I mount the wooden base with the screw included in the kit.


This is my first try in this world, and while I believe this is only the beginning of a series of post every time more complexes (I have in mind some project, that i will document here when I can begin to do it), don't blame me for the stupid thing that I post in this first series of article in the Arduino World, more smarts and complexes things come early... or not, I don't know and I can't see the future, maybe tomorrow I'll die in this case no more post i think.

Let's go, it's time to start to hack my world...
Ygy Freezone.