Through hands-on exercises, this workshop will introduce you to the Arduino board hardware and software, showing you how to interface it to circuits that you build.
The workshop rate includes an Arduino board and all of the necessary electronics for the exercises. Please bring a computer with the Arduino IDE installed (arduino.cc). No previous electronics or programming experience is necessary.
Class size is limited to 12 students.
Included: Arduino Uno-R3 Starter Kit
Click here to reserve your spot.
- Laptop (Mac OS X or Windows. Linux if you’re willing to work at it)
- Please pre-load the developer environment from arduino.cc
About the workshop
Arduino is a microcontroller-based pc-board with associated software that allows you to create, automate and customize a variety of projects. It is an efficient and relatively easy way to add electronic “brains” to electro-optical and electro-mechanical systems.
What is Arduino?
Arduino is an open-source computing platform based on a simple i/o board, and a development environment for writing Arduino software. The Arduino programming language is an implementation of Wiring itself built on Processing.
Arduino can be used to develop interactive objects, taking inputs from a variety of switches or sensors, and controlling a variety of lights, motors, and other outputs. Arduino projects can be stand-alone, or they can be communicate with software running on your computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP) The boards can be assembled by hand or purchased preassembled; the open-source IDE can be downloaded for free.
Who is Steve?
Steve has over twenty nine years of experience in micro-electronics and has written code for a variety of projects. He currently directs a small team of chip designers and is a founder of FabLab Tacoma.
Good To Have (but not necessary)
- Basic knowledge of electric circuits
- Multimeter
- Wire cutters / strippers
- Soldering skills
Tools Needed In Class (provided at FabLabTacoma)
- Wire cutter
- Tape
Class 1: Intro and Blinky LED
- Introducing Arduino
- Arduino the concept
- Arduino the board
- Arduino the IDE
- Processing pedigree
- Getting the Arduino IDE, and running it
- Installing USB drivers
- Arduino sketch structure
- Two functions: setup() and loop()
- C code, but easy
- Quick overview of build process
- Basic (LED) circuits
- Power and ground
- Current limiting resistors
- Connecting them the right way ’round
- Making an LED lamp with battery, LED, & resistor
- Safety Considerations
- Lead on parts (wash hands)
- Static sensitivity of parts (stay grounded)
- Your first Arduino sketch: “Blinky”
- Blinky as “hello world” for microcontrollers
- Building and coding an LED blinking device
- Using digitalWrite()
- Get Creative / Fun modifications
- blinkblinkblink, wait…., blink.
- Morse code player
- Make blinky eyes
Class Outline from http://machineproject.com/classes/microcontroller-101/spooky-outline/
