Arduino shields are splendid in concept…but, as new Arduino variants mutate and evolve, one inevitably runs into the issue that each board has its own distinct personality, and just following the shield pinout is no longer a guarantee of interoperability.
Our new guide aims to clear up this confusion. It’s a one-stop cross-reference with each combination of Adafruit shield and Arduino board, finding workarounds where incompatibilities exist and improving our library code along the way.
We have five Adafruit shields to start with: PWM/Servo Shield, Assembled Data Logging Shield, Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield, NeoPixel Shield and the PN532 NFC/RFID Shield, and we have these working across all the mainstream Arduino boards: Uno, Leonardo, Mega (all variants), even the Due! More shields will be added incrementally until the whole stable is represented.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
