I've just bought a SainSmart L293D motor shield for my arduino uno, but i am wondering, could i still interface with the uno (like send commands from my laptop to the microcontroller) and make it respond to the input (Make the motors / servo's do stuff.)
I was looking up some things involving bluetooth interfacing, but they all show options where i can't just use the usb input for it.
I am wondering if i could still put a bluetooth dongle into the uno, without having to use any pins (which all seem to be taken by the shield.)
Satkan:
I've just bought a SainSmart L293D motor shield for my arduino uno, but i am wondering, could i still interface with the uno (like send commands from my laptop to the microcontroller) and make it respond to the input (Make the motors / servo's do stuff.)
Sure. Serial communication uses pins 0 and 1, and a motor shield should not use those.
I was looking up some things involving bluetooth interfacing, but they all show options where i can't just use the usb input for it.
Correct. The Arduino is designed to talk to things on GPIO (General Purpose I/O) pins. The USB port is just for serial communications like debugging and code download. The Arduino generally does not have the brains to talk to other things like Bluetooth over the USB port (difficult/impossible to implement the protocols necessary).
I am wondering if i could still put a bluetooth dongle into the uno, without having to use any pins (which all seem to be taken by the shield.)
Shields will typically "pass through" pins, allowing stacking. If the motor shield does not have female headers on top, then get a Bluetooth shield that does so you can stack the motor shield on top of it.