If you are trying to load a sketch onto your Arduino Mega ADK you may notice in the Arduino 0022 IDE that there is no option for this board. This guide will cover extremely quickly how to install the drivers, provided by Arduino, to make your Arduino Mega ADK programmable from the IDE.

Project Steps

Download the software.

Go to Arduino Software downloads page to download the lastest version of their IDE, 0022.

Pick the correct distribution for your operating system.

Now head over to the Arduino Mega ADK information page to download the drivers and updated board.txt file.

Install the software.

Unpack your distribution of the Arduino Integrated Development Environment, or IDE for short. Inside the unpacked Arduino IDE should be a folder labeled “arduino-0022”. Inside that folder there should be a bunch of other folders as seen in the screenshot.

The board selection screen that is shown is fresh from the install. The Ardunio Mega ADK is not currently a selection, but we are going to fix that.

Install the drivers.

Unpack the Arduino_ADK.zip, and there should be a file labeled, Arduino MEGA ADK.inf. This is the driver file that is needed to allow the computer to talk with the microcontroller.

To move it into the correct folder first copy the Arduino MEGA ADK.inf file. After that navigate into the drivers folder of the Arduino IDE installation and paste the file there. This location can be found at the arduino-0022 folder we were just in. The general path would be “location unzipped”/arduino-0022/drivers”.

This will depend on the operating system and the location in which the file was unzipped.

Plug the Arduino Mega ADK into your computer and the drivers should automatically install at this point.

If the drivers do not install automatically please visit the Getting Started with Arduino homepage for detailed guides per operating system on how to get the board to find its drivers.

Replace the board.txt file.

Our final step is to replace the original board.txt file with the new file that was downloaded in Step 1. This file needs to go into the /arduino-0022/hardware/arduino/ folder. Just paste it over the file that is already in this folder.

Restart your Arduino IDE if it was running while you were making these changes to the program. Once it is back up select Tools, then Boards, and you should have the Arduino Mega ADK as an option.

Conclusion

At this point you should be able to load any sketch you want onto your Arduino Mega ADK board. Now go out and start making awesome Arduino-based projects!