Prototyping ShieldsThese simple shields can help you create your own awesome projects!
Overview
- What it is: A protoshield is a very simple shield that stacks on top of your Arduino but doesn't contain any components. It has plenty of room for you to solder on your own electronics and wires. Most also contain a reset button and status LED so you can access them even without seeing your Arduino.
- What it does: If you find yourself hooking up the same circuit on a breadboard over and over, it might be time to combine your components into a custom shield. You can connect components to set header pins easy by soldering a few wires and plugging in your shield.
- How to use it: Plan out your layout before you start soldering. Besides that, the exact components are up to you! This is the most open-ended type of shield that basically exists for people who want something in between a breadboard and a printed circuit board.
Military Laser Experiment by US Air Force (Public Domain)
Types of Protoshields
Image by Sparkfun
Basic Protoshield:
This shield, available from Sparkfun, gives you the bare minimum for a protoboard - header pins, a soldering area, a reset pin, and a status LED. It also comes with two pushbutton switches that you can use as you wish in your prototyping. Arduino sells a similar model here.
Image by Sparkfun
ProtoScrew Shield:
This protoshield is almost identical to the first, except that it expands out to give you a bigger area for components. The header pins are extended to screw terminals at the side so there's more room in the middle and you can screw in even more components to the edges. Adafruit also has a version, available here.
Go-Between Shield:
If you're trying to stack two shields on top of eachother but they won't fit or keep interfering, stick this shield in between to fix your problem. If your shields are competing for the same pin, you can re-route signals by re-wiring this shield to move pins around. Handy for more ambitious projects.
Image by Sparkfun
Pogobed Shield:
If you're trying to develop a shield but you're not quite sure it will work yet, use this shield to interface between your Arduino and your work in progress. You can screw on the board in development without soldering anything, allowing you to experiment without making any commmitments.
Image by Sparkfun
Crossbar Banjo1 by Yeatesh (CC-BY-SA)
Project Ideas
- Project Playground: Combine all the components we've used for projects on this site into one shield. Use a bunch of simple components like buttons, LEDs, potentiometers, speakers, etc. to give yourself as many project options as possible.
- Keyboard: Remember how much of a pain the keyboard from the beginner projects section was to hook up? Could you simplify that by making it into a shield? How many different notes can you fit on one?
- LCD Shield: One of the later shield sections deals with display shields, but why not make your own? Add an LCD display and some buttons to a protoshield, and see what you can do!
