Getting Started with Arduino

Getting Started with Arduino

ARDUINO

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It is intended for artists, designers, hobbyists and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or developing environments.

Arduino can sense its environment by receiving inputs from sensors, and interact with its environment by controlling lights, motors, or other actuators. The Arduino integrated development environment (IDE) is a cross-platform application written in Java, and is derived from the IDE for the Processing programming language and wiring projects. It can run independently and communicate with other software such as Processing, MaxMSP and more. Arduino IDE is open source so you can download and share thousands of interactive projects for free!

Here are some Arduino projects just to give you some ideas of tasks it can complete.

// make sound notification when coffee is done

// email notification via mobile

// blinking fluffy toy

// professor X’s steam punk wheel chair with voice recognition and drink serving function

// a Star War arm gun

// a pulse monitor to store data when biking

// a robot that can run in snow and draw pictures on the floor

HISTORY

Arduino started in 2005 as a project for students at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Ivrea, Italy. At that time, programming students used a "BASIC Stamp" for projects. This was at a cost of $100, considered expensive for students.

Massimo Banzi, one of the founders of Arduino, taught at Ivrea. The name "Arduino" comes from a bar in Ivrea where some of the founders of the project used to meet. The bar itself was named after Arduino, Margrave of Ivrea and King of Italy from 1002 to 1014.

Colombian student Hernando Barragan contributed a hardware thesis for a wiring design. After the wiring platform was complete, researchers worked to make it lighter, less expensive, and available to the open source community. The school eventually closed down, so these researchers, including a man called David Cuartielles, promoted the idea. This idea was to become the Arduino as we know it today.

ARDUINO UNO

Now let’s take a close look at the Arduino micro-controller and try to locate I/O ports (input/output) and onboard LEDs.

I/ O pins, digital pins 0-13, analog pins 0-5.

2 power sources. One is the USB port that can draw power from the USB connection. Another is a power jack that inputs DC power of 6-12 volts.

4 LEDs and reset button. L is the onboard LED that connects with digital pin 13. TX and RX are indicators of transmission signal and received signal. When we download a sketch to the Arduino, these two lights blink, indicating that data is being transmitted and received.

FIRST USE

1.Download Arduino IDE

Go to

https://www.arduino.cc/en/software to download the installation file according to your operation system.

2.Install Arduino IDE

To install the Arduino IDE 2 on a Windows computer, simply run the file downloaded from the software page.

Follow the instructions in the installation guide. The installation may take several minutes.

You can now use the Arduino IDE 2 on your Windows computer!

3. Upload a Blink program

Open Arduino IDE and take a moment to move your mouse along each icon to get to know their functions.

Here we will use a very basic sample code, "Blink" to go through the whole process and test whether the controller is working.

Open the LED blink example sketch. You will find it under Files->Examples->01. Basics->Blink.

Then, we should choose what board we are uploading to.

Select your microcontroller by click Select Board & Port, it detected Arduino boards automatically show up here, along with the port number.

Beside the verify and upload button you should see a a drop down menu, this will, in most cases, display Arduino boards that are connected to your computer. If your board is not automatically detected, you can either press "Select other board and port..." in the drop-down and follow the instructions, or go to Tools > Board and Tools > Port in the toolbar menu to select the board and port manually.

Click "Verify" to compile your code. The IDE changes the code, from text into instructions that the computer can understand. This process is called compiling.

Verifying...

Finished!

The code we are using should not have errors since it is an example code. If a code does have errors in it will fail to verify.

Time to upload the code to your Arduino!

Click “Upload”to send the instructions via the USB cable to the Arduino.

Uploading...

Uploaded!

After it is finished, the Arduino will run the code automatically and the onboard LED will start to blink, just as programed!

REVIEW

We must do the following steps before we uploading the code:

Select Board & Port -> Verify Code -> Upload

...then your sketch will be uploaded.