Figure 1. Arduino starter kit (Own work)
For my graduation project, I want to build a small and simple animatronic using different 3D techniques. Since I have literally no experience using microcontrollers, I decided to buy an Arduino starter kit.
The Arduino starter kit provides 15 small projects that teach you how to use the Arduino. The kit comes with an Arduino Uno, multiple sensors, and actuators. A handbook included in the kit holds all 15 projects and information about the parts and its schematics.
Current level: "I have no idea what I'm getting into"
Figure 2. Attached microcontroller (Own work)
I attached the microcontroller and the breadboard to a plastic holder, downloaded the IDE and plugged it in. We are ready to go.
Project 1 ~ Get to know your tools
The first assignment is to make a short circuit with some switches, an LED, and a resistor.
Learning goals: Basic electrical theory, how a breadboard works, components in series and parallel
Figure 3. Microcontroller and parts for assignment (Own work)
Usually, I tend to follow the steps and be done with it when it works, but this time I really tried to understand what is happening here.
I connected the red wire to the 5V slot on the Arduino the + slot on the breadboard. The black wire is plugged into the "GND" slot on the Arduino and the adjacent - slot on the breadboard. So far so good.
A resistor of 220Ohm is placed in series with a switch and a LED. Once the power was plugged in and the switch was pressed the LED lit up.
A second switch was added to show the difference placed in parallel and in series. When the switches were placed in parallel only one had to be pressed to light up the LED. When placed in series both of the switches had to be pressed to light up the LED.
This assignment, although very easy, helped me understand how to use a breadboard. I also remembered what I learned about circuits in parallel and series in high school.
I repeated the assignment without the use of the handbook to check if I fully understood what I had to do.
Current level: "Nothing exploding yet..."
Project 3 ~ LOVE - O - METER
For this assignment we are going to use an analog input, temperature, to turn on some LEDs
It has been a while since I worked with the Arduino. Even though the projects are simple, I'm afraid to mess it up.
The LEDs are connected to the digital pins 2,3 and 4 with a resistor of 220ohm to ground. The temperature sensor is connected to analog pin 0. The sensor gives a value from 0 to 1023 which is mapped to 5 volts. With the help of the handbook a program was written to convert the value to temperature in Celcius. For every 2 degrees higher than the base temperature a LED turned on.
While testing the build I noticed that it takes a while for the sensor to cooldown back to base temperature. You could see the temperature slowly drop reading the print lines and watching the LED. Apparently I have cold hands because I wasn't able to turn on the third LED, my boyfriend however could have lit up the whole room...
Current level: "Getting the hang of this"
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