If you want to learn how to program and build devices using the Arduino, who could be better placed to tell you about than Massimo Banzi, co-founder of Arduino?

There are ten fairly easy to watch videos in Massimo Banzi's tutorial series that take you through the basics to some moderately sophisticated projects - interfacing with processing and a Twitter device. The videos have a professional feel to them and Massimo's delivery is calm and steady. If you can't cope with the Italian accent then you might not agree, but to me it was clear and comforting when tackling a difficult ideas. 

The ten videos are:

1. Get to know your Tools
2. Spaceship Interface
3. The Love-O-Meter
4. Light Theremin
5. Keyboard
6. Motorized Pinwheel
7. Crystal Ball Magic
8. Touchy Feely Lamp
9. Tweak the Arduino
10. Twitter controlled

The videos make use of the Arduino starter kit which has all of the parts you need to build the projects in the videos but you can follow the course using any Arduino, a breadboard and some parts.

The advantage of watching videos to learn about the Arduino is that you can see the hardware implementation, and this makes things seem real. If you are having trouble getting started with circuit diagrams, then to see the components in place makes it look a lot easier.

However, the downside is that you don't get to see the program text quite as clearly as you really need to. If you want to be a really attentive student then the solution is to download the program code so you can look at it as the video plays. The source code is included in the examples section of the Arduino IDE.  

Massimo does a surprisingly good job of explaining what the programs are doing and introduces each project with a nice overview that lets you know where you are heading. You can watch all of the videos starting from the first:

Let's hope that this is a sucess and we get some more advanced videos on different specialist topics, such as using Bluetooth or WiFi.