What are shields. On internet I came across many links about this.

1.What I understand in context of arduino from this website is
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/arduino-shields
that they are boards with extra functionality & directly gets connected to arduino boards.

2. Is there other/extra meaning of shield in context of other electronics.

 

Shield or shielding is generally applied to "shield" a signal source from another. For example, in a cat5 cable the twisted pairs are "shielded" in order to reduce cross talk, or perhaps voltage spikes from the power. EM shielding is another common "shielding" application for example.

 

In signal/lines/wires context shielding I understand.
I was asking specifically to boards. (forget to mention that in OP)

 

This is a blatant misuse of the term shield by the website you have linked to.

I say misuse because the term already has a specific and important meaning in electrical/electronic engineering, which is entirely unconnected with that website's use.
So to introduce another meaning is misleading at best.

I can see why some advertiser, who knows no electronics has used it. Because the boards have a passing resemblance to a shield in the knights in armour sense.

 

Since arduino is generally made for people that are new to electronics and programming they decided to use a simple word as shield so that people can remember it easily. Proper name for such board should be expansion module/board.

 

This is a blatant misuse of the term shield by the website you have linked to.

I say misuse because the term already has a specific and imporant meaning in electrical/electronic engineering, which is entirely unconnected with that website's use.
So to introduce another meaning is misleading at best

So using that logic, most automobile manufacturers are blatantly misusing words when they name their products? What's a Ford Focus? Similarly for sports teams. I don't see any bears on the ice for a Boston Bruins game. I'm sure I could think of other examples. I agree with ISB123.

 

There are many ways to describe an auxiliary board, pretty well all of them are self explanatory not misleading.

Daughter board, sub assembly, auxiliary board, expansion board,

But what exactly does a shield board protect against, given that is the purpose of a shield?

This thread was started by a prime example of a beginner being mislead.

 

But what exactly does a shield board protect against, given that is the purpose of a shield?

Perhaps it shields you from looking at the motherboard.

 

proper use of shield for a board would be a board built to shield another board from outside damage, like static or voltage spikes from outside sources. there seems to be none on the arduino "shields".

 

A shield in the context of Arduino is a second board that plugs into the main Arduino to add some function. You may be able to stack up several shields (boards) to add interesting things.

While I would have prefered a different term being used I cannot argue with this. English has many words with several meanings, this is no better or worse then most.

I just do not find it very descriptive.

 

The Arduino Shield is first and foremost a branding term.

As such, the products it describes attach in front of the Arduino, like a shield, and provides a function and thus shielding the user from developing the function. IMHO, this double entendre justifies it's use in a marketing sense. As ErnieM stated, the language has many words with several meanings. And my earlier point was that this is very apparent in branding/ advertising/ marketing.

 

This is a blatant misuse of the term shield by the website you have linked to.

I say misuse because the term already has a specific and important meaning in electrical/electronic engineering, which is entirely unconnected with that website's use.
.

This I feel is one of the unfortunate down sides to sharing information on the internet, especially when it comes to established definitions, in one group I moderate which is mainly hobby based, many members do no have any equivalent industry or technical based experience, and someone latches on to a term or definition and draws a conclusion as to its meaning and starts to use it in an authoritative manner or posts it on their web site and before long the term has more than one meaning when picked up by the uninitiated.
Max.

 

Hey, cut the Italians some slack. What is shield in Italian?

 

But what exactly does a shield board protect against, given that is the purpose of a shield?

I think you are absolutely right: calling it a shield is also misleading and confusing for beginners.

When I bought my first shield I actually thought it would protect my Arduino in case anything went wrong -something like a fuse- but once I received it I realised it had nothing to do with shielding or protecting the board; which is what the word "shield" implies.

 

Oh you guys are SO engineers. There not a single definition for most words in the English language. And contextually, meaning is often apparent. If we are talking about Arduinos, then we are not likely talking about an RF field.

And as engineers, I suggest that we are intelligent enough to tell the difference or at least figure it out PDQ.

As Humpty Dumpty says in Through the Looking Glass, "a word means what I want it to mean". Written by Charles Dodgson, mathematician.

 

. And contextually, meaning is often apparent. If we are talking about Arduinos, then we are not likely talking about an RF field.

And as engineers, I suggest that we are intelligent enough to tell the difference or at least figure it out PDQ.

Maybe this is not a perfect example, but as mentioned before, it is the ones that come to sites like this for clarification and learning, like I said in #12, definitions etc are inclined to get changed and misunderstood.
Max.

 

Here is Nature's definition of shield

https://www.google.co.uk/images?q=s...lt_group&ei=Y6ZvVI_yLMvLaI3EgegJ&ved=0CBoQsAQ