How to find your perfect Shields

If you search the websites which are selling Arduino components, you will find lots of Arduino Shields for sale. Maybe you don’t need it for yourself, but I think it’s necessary for all of you to know what Arduino Shields are and how many kinds of Arduino Shields in the market. In fact, an Arduino Shields is circuit board which on the top of the Arduino board and allows you to add additional capabilities or to provide a convenient interface for you project.


Generally speaking, there are seven different kinds of Shields:

1, Tinker Kit
If you want to use sensors quickly, the best way is to have an Arduino Tinker Kit, it contains some 3 pin connectors which allow you to connect other devices such as buttons gyroscopes and so on. Tinker Kit is the easiest way to learn how to interface with majority of the sensors available for Arduino.

2, Xbee Shield
If you want to automate your home with your Arduino creations and you love wireless capability, pick up the Xbee module with the Arduino Wireless Shield, because the Xbee module can communicate with other Xbee enabled devices within range of your Arduino and other Arduinos.

3, Arduino Ethernet Shield
By using Arduino Ethernet Shield, you can connect your Arduino project to the world easily. If you use the Ethernet Shield with the Sparkfun Weather Shield and serve up web pages displaying all the current weather informations from your Arduino, then you have changed your Arduino into an internet connected weather station. You can also setup your Arduino to receive commands through the Ethernet Shield. This makes it easy to control your Arduino projects when you are away from the house. An example project would be to open and close your garage door from your smart phone!

4, Breadboard Shield
It’s easy for Breadboards to connect all your components together in a non-permanent way, and this allows you to change the circuit as many times as you need.

5, Prototyping Shield
However, if you want to make your circuit permanent, you’d better create your own Arduino shield with the Proto Shield. To make your project permanent and keep it in one piece with your Arduino, you can solder your circuit on the board. It’s the smartest choice to create a PCB by using the Proto Shield.