Designing more compact hardware

We used development boards throughout this book, and we specifically chose Arduino boards because they are designed to a high standard. While you might find a few of the Arduino MKR boards being used in real-world applications, the majority of real-world applications do not make use of a development board. But let’s begin with our development boards.

Proof-of-concept (PoC) prototypes

If you are done with your design and find that you have pins to spare, then there is an opportunity for a smaller setup. Even if you don’t have pins to spare, if you made use of a breadboard, then there could be an opportunity for a smaller design. You certainly can’t ship a solderless breadboard into the field. The DuPont cables frequently used in solderless breadboards are likely to shake and come off.

This is where protoboards come in handy. These let you position your components and solder them together using wires. At this point, you will...