As explained by Arduino to Go, each color band on the resistor corresponds to a number but this can differ depending on the band's placement. It's not complicated, but the sheer number of colors ...

The BASIC interpreter eats up around 600 bytes in the Arduino RAM, leaving about 1.4 kB for BASIC code. Not much, but more than the lowest-end BASIC Stamp.

Arduino simplifies things by only using just one coding language. Here's what you need to get started with developing software for the tiny device.

Of course, knowing the basics of Arduino is only half the battle; if you want to get to the fun stuff you'll have to learn how to code it as well.

We'll outline the basics of the Arduino itself, what the crazy jumble of wires means, and then step through how to use other people's code and schematics to build your first electronics project ...