Choose Arduino?

Question

Arduino

Closer to the new year, I want to give myself an Arduino gift, but because I didn’t deal with it before, and in general I had a very mediocre relationship with all electronics, then help in choosing an Arduino is highly appreciated).
Uno, Mega, Fio, Pro, Nano, Mini, etc. On Ebay I saw a lot of so-called Starters kits based on the ATmega 328 board with wires, LEDs, a led display and other goodies (in order not to advertise any of the sellers, we just write “arduino starters kit” in the ebay search).
For example, in this topic , Arduino uno was recommended, but I still didn’t understand what caused the choice of this particular board.
How are all these boards fundamentally different and what would you advise me, as a beginner, to take as an interested geek with inclinations to do something with my own hands (albeit not very direct yet) and a penchant for programming.
I have no desire to use Arduino for something serious, but rather, to play around, and then how it goes.
Thank you in advance for your help.

Answer 1

>> Uno, Mega, Fio, Pro, Nano, Mini, etc.
in fact, it is all the same in the eyes of a beginner.
1. The main difference is in the dimensions and in the convenience of connecting wires (see the screenshot of Nano and Uno for example)
2. The second is the number of inputs / outputs and ports for communication with other devices. Here, Uno has few of them, while Mega has a lot of them. But as I wrote above, this is not important for a beginner. because at first you will flash LEDs and turn motors, Uno is enough for this :)
I chose Uno, after which I bought a discovery board, now I play around on both boards. I don’t need Mega yet, since I haven’t used everything in Uno yet.
There are also price facts here:
Uno is not expensive, Mega is expensive.
If money doesn't matter to you, then take Uno and Mega :)

Answer 2

I apologize for selfishness, but I want to add my own question here (I can’t create a separate question - I behaved badly, I was left without karma).
Can someone tell me if there is something similar to "arduino", but what about the JVM inside?

Answer 3

I would advise Mega - more ports and no restrictions on some ports
Or if shields are not planned, then it is convenient to use Nano with breadboard

Answer 4

I suggest buying some set where everything is already there
bit.ly/t5eFBf or bit.ly/uT9GCL

Answer 5

I advise Uno, an ideal option for a start. I took Mega for myself and regretted it a little, as I encountered incompatibility of some shields (different location of SPI on uno and mega).

Answer 6

Buy an inexpensive Chinese Arduino clone on ebay, preferably a Starter Kit - it will be cheaper than taking everything separately. In the kit that I bought was the Arduino board itself (analogous to UNO), a small breadboard (breadboard), breadboard shield (just an empty board, you can solder your parts on it or just stick the breadboard with double-sided tape in the kit for easy prototyping), sensor shield - also a simple shield with a bunch of three-pin connectors (GND, V+, Data), convenient for connecting different sensors and actuators (I also bought a bundle of wires with such three-pin connectors separately) and LCD shield - a two-line LCD display. I also separately took wires for the breadboard, servos, LEDs - regular and IR. Everything was very cheap, and from this set you can already assemble different circuits, gradually study circuitry.

Answer 7

at least one UNO, MEGA and mini each, plus a kick starter set