Bret Stateham

DroneBot Workshop has a great video that covers many of these same topics and more. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT19dg73nKU

@Roger Secura: my apologies for not responding sooner. I imagine it is too late, but yes, please feel free to use the code (I wouldn't mind a mention) and reply back with a link to the article so we can all see it!

@bratidiana:You can CERTAINLY power an Arduino with them.  DC motor, MAYBE.  Just depends on the voltages/amperages required by the motor.  

Some of the cheap "5V\2A" (5 volt, 2 amp) power supplies may not actually get you a full "2A".  So beware, your mileage may vary.  It's worth paying a few dollars more for a higher quality one if you plan on using it in your projects. 

Love these "Data Science for Beginners" videos!  

Looks like a fun project to do with the kids.  Thanks for the idea! 

So cool! I want to make one!

Love these boards Brian!  Thanks for the video.  

For other viewers, just FYI, there are a number of "Azure IoT Starter Kits" (link) available.  One of kits from Adafruit and has the Huzzah ESP8266 board in a "Feather" format (link).  There is a set of tutorials as well that walks you through publishing temperature data up to Azure via IoT Hubs, Stream Analytics, Table Storage, Azure Event Hubs, and a Node.js Web App (link).  

Love it!

@Ron SanAgustin:Boards like the Big Easy Driver help to simplify driving steppers by taking care of firing the proper coils for you.  For example with the big easy driver, you just set a direction pin to indicate clockwise or counter clock wise, and then just toggle a step pin each time you want it to step.  In addition, boards like the Big Easy driver can do "Micro Stepping" which gives you even finer resolution than half stepping.

SparkFun has a hookup guide for the Big Easy driver board that you can read up on before buying it here: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/big-easy-driver-hookup-guide

@BretStateham:Actually, you might be trying to drive it too fast too.  Try playing with the "delay(x)" statement at the bottom.  Smaller delay values mean faster motor speed.  Higher delay values mean slower motor speeds. 

@Kim Holland:Thanks Kim, these motors are a lot of fun and really get the mind going on stuff you can do with them.  Enjoy! 

@Sameer:Not sure.  The only times I've had vibration from my motors are when I either have the coils wired wrong,or I was running them really slow (it kind of clunks from step to step when running slow).  It's been a couple of days since you posted your comment, did you get it figured out?  If not, do you have another motor you can try? I haven't really had any faulty motors myself, but they are pretty cheap so it is to be expected. 

Bret