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I am not sure if this question is allowed, feel free to remove if it is not.

I am new to Arduino and looking for advice on a good starter kit to purchase. I have done some research but felt it would be better to ask the experts here because I do not want to spend a ton of money. I have never used Arduino before but I know some programming.

I am looking to build something that can take input in from a microphone and output to a speaker and possibly connect with a Raspberry Pi. Internet interaction would be great as well. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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2 Answers 2

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That's pretty specific requirements you have for a started kit. I can't think of any started kit that would have those things in.

First you should start by defining exactly what it is you want to do in the way of interaction with a microphone and speaker. There's a number of different interpretations of that and they all require different hardware.

Some things are just not possible on an Arduino, so your desires may be out-stripping the hardware from the get-go.

The networking side of things is easy enough - there's shields to do that for you - both wired and wireless. Once you have networking you can use that to interact with the Pi.

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thank you for the reply. It's a good thing you brought up the point about different interpretations because I did not know that. Basically my project is going to be more complex but the foundation is this, I say something into the microphone, "Turn on light". It runs some code which I will have, and turns on the light on pin 13 for example, and turns on the light and outputs "Light on" through speaker. Can Arduino do this? –  NuWin Jun 19 at 21:58
    
It can't do it directly, but there is a shield you can add to an Arduino for voice recognition: sparkfun.com/products/13316 - you won't find that sort of thing in a starter kit, so it's good to spec out exactly what you want to do and find the right hardware to fit the bill rather than buying a generic starter kit and being disappointed. –  Majenko Jun 19 at 22:06
    
thanks again for your response. That is the exact reason why I wanted to post my question on here. well let me ask you this. Would it be best if I buy a starter kit since I am new to Arduino, play around with it a bit then buy the appropriate shields? If I go that route, would these shields be compatible with all Arduino boards? I have searched a lot on the internet mostly Amazon and eBay for starter kits, there are so many vendors. –  NuWin Jun 20 at 0:12
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After reading your question, I must recommend you to use virtual Arduino kits available on the internet, some are free and some are not expensive like 14.99 etc. Using PI is a different option, it uses Python if I am not wrong. One of my friend worked on it as it gives more option then Arduino and itself a micro computer while Arduino is a micro-controller. But in last he is moving to Arduino due to variety of code available for it. You can buy cheap Chinese kits from eBay or somewhere. To move in a direction, you have to take first step. For internet connection with Arduino you have to buy shield which cost around 40-50 dollars. Using Microphone and speaker is possible with Arduino with different option like amplifying, changing voice quality, turning LED etc. Good Luck

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