Learn Electronics with Arduino: An Illustrated Beginner's Guide to Physical Computing

by Jody Culkin, Eric Hagan

Overview

This book is your introduction to to physical computing with the Arduino microcontroller platform. No prior experience is required, not even an understanding of basic electronics. With color illustrations, easy-to-follow explanations, and step-by-step instructions, the book takes the beginner from building simple circuits on a breadboard to setting up the Arduino IDE and downloading and writing sketches to run on the Arduino. Readers will be introduced to basic electronics theory and programming concepts, as well as to digital and analog inputs and outputs. Throughout the book, debugging practices are highlighted, so novices will know what to do if their circuits or their code doesn't work for the current project and those that they embark on later for themselves. After completing the projects in this book, readers will have a firm basis for building their own projects with the Arduino.

Written for absolute beginners with no prior knowledge of electronics or programming

Filled with detailed full-color illustrations that make concepts and procedures easy to follow

An accessible introduction to microcontrollers and physical computing

Step-by-step instructions for projects that teach fundamental skills

Includes a variety of Arduino-based projects using digital and analog input and output

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781680453744
Publisher:	Make Community, LLC
Publication date:	09/18/2017
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	254,168
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	10 - 18 Years

About the Author

Jody Culkin is an artist and teacher. Her comic, "Arduino!" has been translated into 12 languages and her illustrations have appeared in Make magazine. She has received grants and awards from the National Science Foundation, the New York State Council on the arts and many other organizations. She is currently a Professor at CUNY's Borough of Manhattan Community College in the Media Arts and Technology Department. She has a BA from Harvard Universityin Visual Studies and an MPS from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. Jody enjoys showing projects at the annual New York City World Maker Faire.

Eric Hagan is an interactive and kinetic artist and assistant professor based out of Astoria, NY. He has written articles for publications including Make: magazine and Popular Science. He has also worked on several art installation projects around New York City including the annual holiday windows on 5th Avenue and Kara Walker's A Subtlety. He is currently a Professor at SUNY Old Westbury in the Visual Arts Department. He has a BA from Duke Universityin Philosophy and an MPS from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. Eric enjoys showing projects at the annual New York City World Maker Faire.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vii

About the Authors viii

Preface ix

1 Introduction to Arduino 1

Physical Computing 3

Prototyping 3

What Will I Need and Where Can I Get It? 4

Parts and Tools 5

Resources 12

Summary 13

2 Your Arduino 15

Parts of an Arduino 16

Plug Your Arduino into Your Computer 20

Components and Tools 26

Summary 30

3 Meet the Circuit 31

The Circuit: Building Block of Electronics 32

The Schematic 37

Using a Breadboard 42

Building a Circuit 48

A Look at the Battery 52

Power for Our Circuit: Electricity 55

Debugging the Circuit 57

The Multimeter 60

Using the Multimeter 65

Back to Debugging Our Circuit 69

Summary 71

4 Programming the Arduino 73

Arduino, Circuits, and Code: Bringing Everything Together 74

What's an IDE? 75

Downloading the Arduino IDE: Getting Started 78

The Sketch: The Basic Unit of Arduino Programming 90

Debugging: What to Do if the LED Isn't Blinking 96

LEA4_Blink Sketch: An Overview 98

Setup() and loop(): The Guts of Your Code 101

Looking at loop(): What Happens Over and Over 109

A Schematic of the Arduino 115

Building the Basic Circuit 118

SOS Signal Light: Creating More Complex Timing 125

Summary 135

5 Electricity and Metering 137

Understanding Electricity 138

Build the Circuit Step by Step 140

Electricity: An Overview 144

Understanding Electricity: The Water Tank Analogy 148

Voltage: The Potential 149

Current: The Flow 159

Resistance: Restricting the Flow 167

Voltage, Current, Resistance: Review 173

How Do Voltage, Current, and Resistance Interact? Ohm's Law 177

Components in Parallel and Series 180

Summary 192

6 Switches, LEDs, and More 193

Interactivity! 194

Digital inputs and Outputs Overview 195

Digital Input: Add a Button 197

Looking at the Sketch: Variables 206

Digital Input Refresher 213

Looking at the Sketch: Conditional Statements 215

Add a Speaker and Adjust the Code 220

Add Two More Buttons and Adjust the Code 227

Reviewing Electronic and Code Concepts 236

Summary 239

7 Analog Values 241

There's More to Life than On and Off! 241

Potentiometer Circuit, Step by Step 246

The LEA7_AnalogInOutSerial Sketch 254

Analog Input: Values from the Potentiometer 259

Analog Values as Output: PWM 266

Serial Communication 269

Adding the Speaker 278

Adding the Photoresistor 282

Summary 288

8 Servo Motors 289

Waving the Flags 291

Servos Up Close 292

Building the Servo Circuit Step by Step 295

LEA8_Sweep Overview 301

What's a for Loop? 304

Operators 309

The for Loop in the Sketch 312

Add Interactivity: Turn the Flag 314

LEA8_Knob Explained 317

Two Flags Waving: Add a Second Servo Motor 320

LEA8_2_servos, First Look 322

Summary 332

9 Building Your Projects 333

Project Management 334

A Few Helpful Components 338

Types of Projects 342

Other Versions of the Arduino Board 345

Document Your Project and Share It! 348

Summary 350

A Appendix: Redding Resistor Codes 351

Identifying Resistors by Color Bands 351