Arduino : Is The Go-To Gear For Artists, Hobbyists, Students, and Anyone With A Gadgetry Dream

Arduino…
is the go-to gear for artists, hobbyists,

students, and anyone with a gadgetry
dream.
rose out of another formidable challenge:

how to teach students to create
electronics, fast.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/the-making-of-arduino
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
SIK Components
Name Image Type Function Notes
Push Button Digital Input Switch - Closes Polarized, needs
or opens circuit resistor
Trim Analog Input Variable resistor Also called a
Trimpot.
potentiometer
Photoresistor Analog Input Light Dependent Resistance varies
Resistor (LDR) with light.
Relay Digital Output Switch driven by Used to control
a small signal larger voltages
Temp Sensor Analog Input Temp Dependent
Resistor
Flex Sensor Analog Input Variable resistor
Soft Trimpot Analog Input Variable resistor Careful of shorts
RGB LED Dig & Analog 16,777,216 Ooh... So pretty.

Output different colors
SIK Components
SIK Components
SIK Components
Electricity \ Electronics Basic Concept
Review
• Ohms Law
• Voltage
• Current
• Resistance
• Using a Multi-meter
Ohm’s Law
Electrical Properties
Voltage Current Resistance

V I R
• Defined as • The rate of
the amount charge flow
of potential in a circuit.
energy in a • Units: Amperes
circuit. (A)
• Units: Volts (V)
Current Flow Analogy
High Current Low Current
Voltage Analogy
Water
Tower
Water
Tower
V
V
More Energy == Higher Voltage Less Energy == Lower Voltage
Resistance Analogy
Water Water
Tower Tower
Big Pipe == Lower Resistance Small Pipe == Higher Resistance
Continuity – Is it a Circuit?
The word “circuit” is derived from the circle. An

Electrical Circuit must have a continuous LOOP from
Power (Vcc) to Ground (GND).
Continuity is important to make portions of circuits are

connect. Continuity is the simplest and possibly the
most important setting on your multi-meter.
Sometimes we call this “ringing out” a circuit.
Measuring Electricity – Voltage
Voltage is a measure of potential electrical

energy. A voltage is also called a potential
difference – it is measured between two
points in a circuit – across a device.
Measuring Electricity -- Current
Current is the measure of the rate of charge flow. For

Electrical Engineers – we consider this to be the
movement of electrons.
In order to measure this – you must break the circuit or
insert the meter in-line (series).
Measuring Electricity -- Resistance
Resistance is the measure of how much opposition to

current flow is in a circuit.
Components should be removed entirely from the circuit
to measure resistance. Note the settings on the multi-
meter. Make sure that you are set for the appropriate
range.
Resistance
settings
Prototyping Circuits
Solderless Breadboard
One of the most useful tools in an engineer or
Maker’s toolkit. The three most important
things:
• A breadboard is easier than soldering
• A lot of those little holes are connected, which ones?
• Sometimes breadboards break
What’s a Breadboard?
Solderless Breadboard
Each row (horiz.) of 5

holes are connected.
Vertical columns –
called power bus are
connected vertically
Using the Breadboard to built a simple
circuit
Use the breadboard to

wire up a single LED
with a 330 Ohm
Resistor (Orange-
Orange-Brown).
Note: the longer leg on the

LED is the positive leg and
the shorter leg is the
negative
Fritzing View of Breadboard Circuit
What happens
when you break
the circuit?
What if you
wanted to add
more than one
LED?
Adding control – let’s use the Arduino
and start programming!!!
Concepts: INPUT vs. OUTPUT
Referenced from the perspective of the microcontroller (electrical board).
Inputs is a signal / information Output is any signal exiting the

going into the board. board.
Almost all systems that use physical computing will have

some form of output
What are some examples of Outputs?

Concepts: INPUT vs. OUTPUT
Referenced from the perspective of the microcontroller (electrical board).
Inputs is a signal / information Output is any signal exiting the

going into the board. board.
Examples: Buttons Switches, Examples: LEDs, DC motor,

Light Sensors, Flex Sensors, servo motor, a piezo buzzer,
Humidity Sensors, Temperature relay, an RGB LED
Sensors…
Concepts: Analog vs. Digital
Microcontrollers are digital devices – ON or OFF.
Also called – discrete.
analog signals are anything that can be a full

range of values. What are some examples? More
on this later…
5V 5V
0V 0V
Open up Arduino
Hints:
For PC Users  For Mac Users 
1.Let the installer copy 1. Move the Arduino
and move the files to the executable to the dock
appropriate locations, or for ease of access.
2.Create a folder under 2. Resist the temptation
C:\Program Files (x86) to run these from your
called Arduino. Move the desktop.
entire Arduino program
folder here.
Arduino
Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
Two required functions /

methods / routines:
void setup()
{
// runs once
}
void loop()
{
// repeats
error & status messages }
Settings: Tools  Serial Port
Your computer
communicates to the Arduino
microcontroller via a serial
port  through a USB-Serial
adapter.
Check to make sure that the

drivers are properly installed.
Settings: Tools  Board
Next, double-check that the proper board is selected under the

ToolsBoard menu.
Arduino & Arduino Compatible Boards
digitalWrite()
BIG 6 CONCEPTS
analogWrite()
digitalRead()
if() statements / Boolean
analogRead()
Serial communication
Let’s get to coding…
Project #1 – Blink
“Hello World” of Physical Computing
Psuedo-code – how should this work?
Turn LED Turn LED Rinse &

Wait Wait
ON OFF Repeat
Comments, Comments, Comments
Comments are for you – the programmer and your

friends…or anyone else human that might read your
code.
// this is for single line comments

// it’s good to put a description at the
top and before anything ‘tricky’
/* this is for multi-line comments
Like this…
And this….
*/
comments
Three commands to know…
pinMode(pin, INPUT/OUTPUT);
ex: pinMode(13, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(pin, HIGH/LOW);
ex: digitalWrite(13, HIGH);
delay(time_ms);
ex: delay(2500); // delay of 2.5 sec.
// NOTE: -> commands are CASE-sensitive
Project #1: Wiring Diagram
Move the green

wire from the
power bus to pin
13 (or any other
Digital I/O pin on
the Arduino board.
Image created in Fritzing
A few simple challenges
Let’s make LED#13 blink!
Challenge 1a – blink with a 200 ms second

interval.
Challenge 1b – blink to mimic a heartbeat
Challenge 1c – find the fastest blink that the

human eye can still detect…
1 ms delay? 2 ms delay? 3 ms delay???
Try adding other LEDs
Programming Concepts: Variables
Variable Scope
Global
---
Function-level
Programming Concepts: Variable Types
Variable Types:
8 bits 16 bits 32 bits
byte int long

char unsigned int unsigned long
float
Fading in and Fading Out
(Analog or Digital?)
A few pins on the Arduino allow for us to

modify the output to mimic an analog
signal.
This is done by a technique called:

Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)
Concepts: Analog vs. Digital
To create an analog signal, the microcontroller

uses a technique called PWM. By varying the duty
cycle, we can mimic an “average” analog voltage.
Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)
Project #2 – Fading
Introducing a new command…
analogWrite(pin, val);
pin – refers to the OUTPUT pin

(limited to pins 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11.)
– denoted by a ~ symbol
val – 8 bit value (0 – 255).

0 => 0V | 255 => 5V
Move one of your LED pins over to Pin 9
In Arduino, open up:

File  Examples  01.Basics  Fade
Fade - Code Review
Fade - Code Review
Project# 2 -- Fading
Challenge 2a – Change the rate of the

fading in and out. There are at least two
different ways to do this – can you figure
them out?
Challenge 2b – Use 2 (or more) LEDs – so

that one fades in as the other one fades
out.
R G B
Color Mixing
Tri-color LED
In the SIK, this is a standard –

Common Cathode LED
This means the negative side of

the LED is all tied to Ground.
Project 3 – RGB LED
Note: The longest

leg of the RGB
LED is the
Common
Cathode. This
goes to GND.
Use pins 5, 6, & 9
How many unique colors can you create?
Use Colorpicker.com or
experiment on your
own.
Pick out a few colors that
you want to try re-
creating for a lamp or
lighting display...
Play around with this with
the analogWrite()
command.
RGB LED Color Mixing
int redPin = 5;
int greenPin = 6;
int bluePin = 9;
void setup()
{
pinMode(redPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(greenPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(bluePin, OUTPUT);
}
RGB LED Color Mixing
void loop()
{
analogWrite(redPin, 255);
analogWrite (greenPin, 255);
analogWrite (bluePin, 255);
}
Project: Mood Lamp / Light Sculpture
Napkin
Schematics
Emphasize the
engineering design
process with
students. We like to
skirt the line
between formal and
informal with a tool
called Napkin
Schematics.
Napkin
Schematics
Emphasize the
engineering design
process with
students. We like to
skirt the line
between formal and
informal with a tool
called Napkin
Schematics.
Driving Motors or other High Current
Loads
NPN Transistor (Common Emitter “Amplifier” Circuit)
to Digital
Pin 9
Input
Input is any signal entering an electrical system.

• Both digital and analog sensors are forms of input
• Input can also take many other forms: Keyboards, a
mouse, infrared sensors, biometric sensors, or just
plain voltage from a circuit
Project #4 – Digital Input
In Arduino, open up:

File  Examples  02.Digital  Button
Digital Sensors (a.k.a. Switches)
Pull-up Resistor (circuit)
to Digital Pin 2
Digital Sensors (a.k.a. Switches)
Add an indicator LED to Pin 13
This is just like our
1st circuit!
Digital Input
• Connect digital input to your Arduino using Pins # 0 – 13

(Although pins # 0 & 1 are also used for programming)
• Digital Input needs a pinMode command:

pinMode (pinNumber, INPUT);
Make sure to use ALL CAPS for INPUT
• To get a digital reading:

int buttonState = digitalRead (pinNumber);
• Digital Input values are only HIGH (On) or LOW (Off)
Digital Sensors
• Digital sensors are more straight forward than Analog
• No matter what the sensor there are only two

settings: On and Off
• Signal is always either HIGH (On) or LOW (Off)
• Voltage signal for HIGH will be a little less than 5V on

your Uno
• Voltage signal for LOW will be 0V on most systems
http://opensourcehardwarejunkies.com/tutorial-03-digitalread-and-
Programming: Conditional Statements
if()
Programming: Conditional Statements
if()
void loop()
{
int buttonState = digitalRead(5);
if(buttonState == LOW)
{ // do something DIG
INPUT
}
else
{ // do something else
}
}
Boolean Operators
<Boolean> Description
( ) == ( ) is equal?
( ) != ( ) is not equal?
( ) > ( ) greater than
( ) >= ( ) greater than or equal
( ) < ( ) less than
( ) <= ( ) less than or equal
Trimpot (Potentiometer)
Variable Resistor
fixed
end
wiper
fixed
end
Analog Sensors
3 Pin Potentiometer = var. resistor (circuit)
a.k.a. Voltage Divider Circuit
wiper
fixed
ends 1.0 V 1.0 V
Ohms Law… (just the basics)
Actually, this is the “voltage divider”
analogRead()
Arduino uses a 10-bit A/D Converter:

• this means that you get input values from
0 to 1023
• 0V0
• 5 V  1023
Ex:
int sensorValue = analogRead(A0);
Using Serial Communication
Method used to transfer data between two devices.
Data passes between the computer and Arduino

through the USB cable. Data is transmitted as zeros
(‘0’) and ones (‘1’) sequentially.
Arduino dedicates Digital I/O pin # 0 to

receiving and Digital I/O pin #1 to transmit.
Serial Monitor & analogRead()
Initializes the Serial

Communication
9600 baud data rate

prints data to serial bus
Serial Monitor & analogRead()
Opens up a
Serial Terminal
Window
Analog Sensors
2 Pin Analog Sensors = var. resistor
Take two sensors -- Use

the Serial Monitor and find
the range of input values
you get for each sensor.
MaxAnalogRead = _________
MinAnalogRead = _________
Analog Sensors
Examples:
Sensors Variables
Mic soundVolume
Photoresistor lightLevel
Potentiometer dialPosition
Temp Sensor temperature
Flex Sensor bend
Accelerometer tilt/acceleration
Additional Serial Communication
Sending a Message
void loop ( )
{
Serial.print(“Hands on “) ;
Serial.print(“Learning ”) ;
Serial.println(“is Fun!!!”) ;
}
Serial Communication:
Serial Debugging
void loop()
{
int xVar = 10;
Serial.print ( “Variable xVar is “ ) ;
Serial.println ( xVar ) ;
}
Serial Communication:
Serial Troubleshooting
void loop ( )
{
Serial.print (“Digital pin 9: “);
Serial.println (digitalRead(9));
}
Virtual Electrical Prototyping Project
started in 2007 by the Interaction Design Lab
at the University of Applied Science Potsdam, Germany
Open Source
Prototypes: Document, Share, Teach, Manufacture
Now that you feel comfortable putting together
circuits with your breadboard let’s talk about how
to go from the breadboard to a PCB
Free Time
The rest of the class is dedicated to free pursuit
Experiment with the various circuits and lessons in

the SIK.
Explore the additional tutorials available on

learn.sparkfun.com
Thank you for attending our Intro to Arduino class
Questions?
www.sparkfun.com
6175 Longbow Drive, Suite 200
Boulder, Colorado 80301

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Arduino…

is the go-to gear for artists, hobbyists,

rose out of another formidable challenge:

Soft Trimpot Analog Input Variable resistor Careful of shorts

RGB LED Dig & Analog 16,777,216 Ooh... So pretty.

Voltage Current Resistance

High Current Low Current

More Energy == Higher Voltage Less Energy == Lower Voltage

Big Pipe == Lower Resistance Small Pipe == Higher Resistance

The word “circuit” is derived from the circle. An

Continuity is important to make portions of circuits are

Voltage is a measure of potential electrical

Current is the measure of the rate of charge flow. For

Resistance is the measure of how much opposition to

Each row (horiz.) of 5

Use the breadboard to

Note: the longer leg on the

Referenced from the perspective of the microcontroller (electrical board).

Inputs is a signal / information Output is any signal exiting the

Almost all systems that use physical computing will have

What are some examples of Outputs?

Referenced from the perspective of the microcontroller (electrical board).

Inputs is a signal / information Output is any signal exiting the

Examples: Buttons Switches, Examples: LEDs, DC motor,

analog signals are anything that can be a full

Two required functions /

Check to make sure that the

Next, double-check that the proper board is selected under the

if() statements / Boolean

Psuedo-code – how should this work?

Turn LED Turn LED Rinse &

Comments are for you – the programmer and your

// this is for single line comments

// NOTE: -> commands are CASE-sensitive

Move the green

Image created in Fritzing

Challenge 1a – blink with a 200 ms second

Challenge 1b – blink to mimic a heartbeat

Challenge 1c – find the fastest blink that the

8 bits 16 bits 32 bits

byte int long

A few pins on the Arduino allow for us to

This is done by a technique called:

To create an analog signal, the microcontroller

Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)

pin – refers to the OUTPUT pin

val – 8 bit value (0 – 255).

In Arduino, open up:

Challenge 2a – Change the rate of the

Challenge 2b – Use 2 (or more) LEDs – so

In the SIK, this is a standard –

This means the negative side of

Note: The longest

Use pins 5, 6, & 9

NPN Transistor (Common Emitter “Amplifier” Circuit)

Input is any signal entering an electrical system.

In Arduino, open up:

• Connect digital input to your Arduino using Pins # 0 – 13