What exactly is meant by a 'shield' for a microcontroller?

Lynxmotion
1

Hi

I have experience in electronics but am new to microcontrollers.

I’m just got an Arduino Mega…and am confused about people referring to a ‘shield’ for this microcontroller.

What exactly is meant by a ‘shield’ in this context?

thanks!
-John

2

It is simply Arduino terminology. Example sketch versus program. In this case a shield is a daughter board that plugs into Arduino. Part of the Arduino standard includes the locations and functionality of most of the IO pins. A shield plugs into these and gives you some functionality.

Kurt