Artoo Maker Lab is an independent site for people who build things with Arduino, Raspberry Pi, ESP32 and robot kits. We publish projects, plain-English guides and free browser tools to help you get from a parts drawer to a working build with fewer burnt components along the way.
What You’ll Find Here
The site is organised around the questions makers ask most often. Those include what to build, how a component works, which board fits the job, and what value a resistor should be.
Maker Projects
Our step-by-step builds range from a first blinking LED to sensor stations, small robots and connected home gadgets. Each project lists the parts, explains the wiring and walks through the code. We also explain why each step works, so you can adapt the build instead of copying it line for line.
Electronics Basics
These guides cover the fundamentals that every project depends on. Topics include voltage, current and resistance, pull-up and pull-down resistors, logic levels, breadboarding, soldering and reading a datasheet. They are written for people who learn by doing and want the theory only when it helps.
Board Guides
Our board guides cover the hardware itself, including pin layouts, power requirements, voltage limits, programming options and the quirks that trip people up. They span the Arduino family, Raspberry Pi single-board computers and microcontrollers, and Espressif’s ESP32 range. Each guide aims to help you choose the right board for a project before you buy one.
Sensor and Module Guides
Temperature sensors, distance sensors, displays, motor drivers, relays and radio modules each get their own guide. These guides cover how to wire the part, which libraries to use, common failure points and what to check when readings look wrong.
Free Browser Tools
We built a set of calculators and references that run in your browser and handle the small calculations that interrupt a build:
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| GPIO pinout explorer | Shows the pins on popular boards and lists what each one can do |
| Ohm’s law calculator | Solves for voltage, current, resistance or power from known values |
| Resistor colour code calculator | Converts colour bands to a resistance value, and back again |
| LED resistor calculator | Works out the series resistor an LED needs for your supply voltage |
| Number base converter | Converts between binary, decimal and hexadecimal |
Board Release News
When a new board, chip or major revision is announced, we cover the key details. That includes what changed, what it means for existing projects and whether it is worth waiting for. We stick to announced specifications and say clearly when something has not been confirmed.
Build of the Week
Each week we feature a project from the wider maker community that stood out to us. It might be clever, useful, beautifully made or simply fun. Every feature credits the original maker by name or handle and describes their work accurately. We do not present someone else’s build as our own.
Who This Site Is For
We write for hobbyists, students, teachers, tinkerers and engineers working on side projects. Beginners should be able to follow any project from the parts list onward. Experienced builders should find the reference material quick to scan and precise enough to trust.
How We Write
A few principles shape everything we publish:
- Explain the why. A wiring diagram is more useful when you understand the purpose of each connection.
- Be specific. We give real part numbers, real voltages and real values instead of vague advice.
- Flag the risks. Mains voltage, lithium batteries and motors can cause injury or damage, so we say so plainly where it matters.
- Be honest about sources. When a guide is based on our own build, we say so. When it relies on a datasheet or manufacturer documentation, we say that instead.
- Fix mistakes openly. Electronics is unforgiving of errors. If we get something wrong, we correct it.
Independence
Artoo Maker Lab is a new, independent site. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Arduino, Raspberry Pi Ltd or Espressif Systems. Product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners, and we use them only to identify the hardware we write about.
About the Name
The artoo.io address was once home to Artoo, a Ruby robotics framework from The Hybrid Group. Artoo Maker Lab is a separate project with no connection to that framework or its developers. If you came here looking for it, this is not the same thing, though we expect many of its former users will feel at home here.
Get Involved
If you have spotted an error, built something worth featuring or have a topic you would like us to cover, we want to hear from you. Reader corrections improve every guide, and community builds are what keep Build of the Week going.