– Arduino 16×2 LCD screen with keypad £2.50 or $3.60 – 15m of 3 core cable – £10 or $14 – 12v Mains Power Supply £5 – $7 – Arduino IDE software loaded on to a PC or Mac – Free ...

The vertsatile Uno Rev3 is capable of more than just a board for experimental and education projects ...

No multimeter handy (for shame)? Well, as it turns out you can actually measure capacitance using your Arduino Uno, with no external components, and only ~20 lines of code.

This suits the commonly available Arduino shields which combine a 16×2 character LCD with a set of four tactile buttons in a cross formation.