Assembled Feather HUZZAH w/ ESP8266 WiFi With Stacking Headers

Jargon buster

Plain-language definitions for the technical terms used above.

3.3V regulator

A 3.3V regulator is a power circuit that provides a steady 3.3 volts for parts that need that supply voltage. On a breakout board, it can let the sensor run safely even when the connected microcontroller or power source uses a higher voltage.

baud

Baud is the signalling rate of a serial connection, often used as the speed setting for UART communication. Matching the baud rate matters because both connected devices must use the same setting for readable data.

GPIO

General-purpose input/output pins are microcontroller pins you can set in software to read signals, switch devices on and off, or connect to peripherals. The number of GPIO pins matters because it limits how many buttons, LEDs, sensors, and other parts you can wire directly to the board.

Headers

Rows of connector contacts on a fixed pitch (commonly 2.54 mm) used to link a board to a breadboard, jumper wires, or another board. They come as male pin headers and female socket headers; when a module ships with pre-soldered headers it can be used straight away, whereas bare pads require soldering the pins yourself.

I2C

I2C is a two-wire communication bus used by many sensors and small modules. It matters because several I2C devices can share the same two wires, but each device needs a compatible address and your controller must support I2C.

IDE

Short for Integrated Development Environment, a program used to write, run and manage code. It matters because some learners prefer a traditional coding workspace instead of a guided notebook-style lesson.

LED

A light-emitting diode (LED) is a small electronic component that emits light when current flows through it in the correct direction. Because it only conducts one way, its polarity matters, and a through-hole LED must be soldered the correct way around to light up.

microcontroller

A microcontroller is a small computer on a single chip that runs a stored program and controls connected inputs and outputs such as buttons, sensors, displays and communication interfaces. In a device built around one, it is the part that executes the code and coordinates the device's behaviour.

SPI

A fast serial communication bus often used for displays, memory cards, and sensors. It matters because SPI devices need specific pins for clock and data, plus a separate chip-select line for each device.