Powering Up:

When you buy an Arduino board, it is usually preloaded with a sample Blink sketch (for a program) that will make the little built-in LED flash. Below shows an Arduino board with the LED lit the light-emitting diode (LED) is wired up to one of the digital input-output terminals on board. It is connected to digital pin 13. This really limits pin 13 to being used as an output, but this LED is very useful in debugging any program without connecting any extra gears to the board. And also the LED only uses a small amount of current, so we can still connect other things to that terminal. All you need to do to get your Arduino powered up and running.. The easiest way to do is to plug in it into the Universal Serial Bus (USB) port on your computer. In order to  do this we need a USB type A-to-type B USB Cable.

This is the same type of cord that is normally used to connect a computer to a printer. If you are using the older Arduino Diecimila or any equivalent like me, make sure that the power jumper is in the USB position. The newer Arduinos do not have this jumper they select the power source automatically. If everything is working okay, the LED should blink once every two seconds. The reason that new Arduinos have this Blink sketch already installed is to verify that the board works. If your board does not start to blink when connected, check the position of the power jumper (if it has one) and try a different USB socket, possibly on a different computer, as some USB sockets are capable of supplying more power than others Also, clicking the Reset button should cause the LED to flicker just for a moment. If this is the case, but the LED does not flash, then it may just be that the board has not been programmed with the Flash sketch; but do not despair, as once everything is installed, we are going to modify and install that sketch anyway as our first project. Installing the IDE (integrated Development Environment) Software is  provided for free of cost at Arduino's official site get the latest version by clicking the box below which will take you to the Arduino's site for downloading.