There are a few development systems available which are Arduino based which are designed to make it easier for beginners and young people to get started. One of these is the Grove system and the other is this one which we will look at which goes by the name of the Easy plug learning kits(s) by Keyestudio.
The basic concept of these boards is fairly straightforward, if you are plugging in devices such as sensors, components and modules to an Arduino you need to power them and also connect the data lines to them correctly. This means that of course there is a chance of incorrect wiring which can damage the Arduino and/or any devices connected to them. The developers of Grove and the Easy Plug systems have basically designed a connector system that cannot be reversed and cannot be put in incorrectly. This eradicates possibilities of faults like the one's described earlier but also leads to an easier prototyping system. You simply connect your sensor via the cable to one of the connectors on the main board and away you go, no fiddling with breadboards and cable.
Lets look at the Easy plug learning kit
The main part is obviously the large board in th top right of the picture above, its basically an Arduino Uno with all of the I/O pins coming out to connectors. 1 I/O pin per connector the other pins being power. The type of connectors are similar to RJ45 network connectors, you then plug in of the devices to the board and away you go.
Here are a list of the boards supplied
3 * EASY plug Digital White LED Module
1 * EASY plug Active Buzzer Module
1 * EASY plug Passive Buzzer module
1 * EASY plug Analog Temperature Sensor
1 * EASY plug Analog Sound Sensor
1 * EASY plug Photocell Sensor
1 * EASY plug Water Sensor
1 * EASY plug Soil humidity Sensor
1 * EASY plug Analog Rotation Sensor
1 * EASY plug Hall Magnetic Sensor
1 * EASY plug Collision Sensor
1 * EASY plug Digital Push Button
1 * EASY plug Capacitive Touch Sensor
1 * EASY plug Knock Sensor
1 * EASY plug Digital Tilt Sensor
1 * EASY plug Flame Sensor
1 * EASY plug Vibration Sensor
1 * EASY plug Reed Switch Module
1 * EASY plug LM35 Temperature Sensor
You can see its quite easy to create some interesting projects with this collection, for example connect a sensor and an led, when the sensor is activated light the LED
This looks a really good system for beginners and I could also see this being used in a classroom / learning environment as a starter step.
The kit retails at about $40 which seems pretty good value
