AVR | A family of microcontrollers from Atmel, descended from the Intel 8051 microcontroller. |
DIP | (Dual Inline Package) A kind of integrated circuit that has two rows of 0.1″ spaced pins suitable for sticking into a solderless breadboard. |
FTDI | The company that makes the FT232RL chip, a USB-UART converter used on the Arduino. We also call the chips “FTDI chips.” |
H-Bridge | A circuit used to control a motor. It can switch the power on and off (PWM) and control the motor’s direction of rotation. |
I2C | (Inter-Integrated Circuit) a two-wire addressable serial communication protocol. Also called TWI. |
ICSP | (In Circuit Serial Programmer) A device used to program microcontrollers via an ISP port. |
ISP | (In System Programming) A six-pin port that an ICSP can use to program a microcontroller via its SPI interface. |
IR | Infrared radiation, often used for detection, ranging, and low-range wireless data transmission. |
JTAG | (Joint Test Action Group) A device or protocol or port used to program and debug a microcontroller. |
L298 | A high-current integrated circuit containing two H-bridges. Ours come mounted on a red Solarbotics interface board. |
L293 | A low-current integrated circuit containing two H-bridges. Our are just DIP integrated circuits. |
PWM | (Pulse Width Modulation) A technique for generating a variable analog level in an energy storage device (such as a motor or capacitor) using a digital output. |
SPI | (Serial Peripheral Interface) A four-wire master-slave serial communication protocol. |
TWI | (Two Wire Interface) See I2C. |
UART | (Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter) A one- or two-wire point-to-point serial communication protocol (e.g. a COM port on Windows). |
Let me know if there’s something else that should go here.