Arduino for Dummies

Bring your ideas to life with the latest Arduino hardware and software

Arduino is an affordable and readily available hardware development platform based around an open source, programmable circuit board. You can combine this programmable chip with a variety of sensors and actuators to sense your environment around you and control lights, motors, and sound. This flexible and easy-to-use combination of hardware and software can be used to create interactive robots, product prototypes and electronic artwork, whether you’re an artist, designer or tinkerer.

Arduino For Dummies is a great place to start if you want to find out about Arduino and make the most of its incredible capabilities. It helps you become familiar with Arduino and what it involves, and offers inspiration for completing new and exciting projects.

•     Covers the latest software and hardware currently on the market

•     Includes updated examples and circuit board diagrams in addition to new resource chapters

•     Offers simple examples to teach fundamentals needed to move onto more advanced topics

•     Helps you grasp what’s possible with this fantastic little board

John Nussey is a designer, a technologist, and an entrepreneur who loves using technology in new and interesting ways. He has worked with Arduino for many years to prototype products and create interactive artwork. A proud Arduino advocate, he has taught the craft of physical computing and prototyping to people of all ages, competencies, and abilities.

Foreword xiii

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 2

Beyond the Book 3

Where to Go from Here 3

Part 1: Getting To Know Arduino 5

Chapter 1: Discovering Arduino 7

Where Did Arduino Come From? 8

Learning by Doing 11

Patching 12

Hacking 12

Circuit bending 13

Electronics 14

Inputs 15

Outputs 15

Open Source 15

Chapter 2: Finding Your Board and Your Way Around It 17

Getting to Know the Arduino Uno 18

The Brains: ATmega328P microcontroller chip 19

Header sockets 20

Digital pins 21

Analog in pins 21

What about analog out? 21

Power pins 22

USB socket 22

Power socket 22

Reset button 23

Discovering Other Arduino Boards 24

Official Arduino boards 24

Contributed (approved) Arduinos 26

Shopping for Arduino 27

Arduino Store 27

Adafruit 27

SparkFun 28

Seeed Studio 28

Watterott Electronic 28

Electronics distributors 28

Amazon 29

eBay 29

Kitted Out: Starting with a Beginner’s Kit 29

Preparing a Workspace 32

Installing Arduino 33

Surveying the Arduino Environment 33

Using Arduino Web Editor 35

Chapter 3: Blinking an LED 37

Working with Your First Arduino Sketch 37

Finding the Blink Sketch 38

Identifying your board 38

Configuring the software 40

Uploading the sketch 42

Congratulate yourself! 44

What just happened? 44

Looking Closer at the Sketch 44

Comments 46

Functions 47

Setup 48

Loop 50

Blinking Brighter 52

Tweaking the Sketch 53

Part 2: Getting Physical with Arduino 55

Chapter 4: Tools of the Trade 57

Finding the Right Tools for the Job 57

Breadboard 58

Jump wires 59

Needle-nose pliers 61

Multimeter 62

Using a Multimeter to Measure Voltage, Current, and Resistance 63

Measuring voltage in a circuit 63

Measuring current in a circuit 64

Measuring resistance of a resistor 65

Measuring resistance of a variable resistor 66

Checking the continuity (in bleeps) of your circuit 67

Chapter 5: A Primer on Electricity and Circuitry 69

Understanding Electricity 69

Using Equations to Build Your Circuits 71

Ohm’s Law 71

Calculating power 73

Joule’s Law 74

Working with Circuit Diagrams 76

A simple circuit diagram 76

Using a circuit diagram with an Arduino 78

Color-Coding 79

Datasheets 80

Resistor Color Charts 81

Chapter 6: Basic Sketches: Inputs, Outputs, and Communication 85

Uploading a Sketch 86

Using Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) 87

The LED Fade Sketch 87

Understanding the Fade sketch 91

Declarations 92

Variables 92

Tweaking the Fade sketch 94

The Button Sketch 96

Understanding the Button sketch 100

Tweaking the Button sketch 101

The AnalogInput Sketch 103

Understanding the AnalogInput sketch 106

Tweaking the AnalogInput sketch 108

Talking Serial 109

The DigitalReadSerial Sketch 109

Understanding the DigitalReadSerial sketch 112

The AnalogInOutSerial Sketch 113

Understanding the AnalogInOutSerial sketch 117

Chapter 7: More Basic Sketches: Motion and Sound 119

Working with Electric Motors 119

Discovering Diodes 121

Spinning a DC Motor 121

The Motor sketch 122

Understanding the Motor sketch 125

Changing the Speed of Your Motor 126

The MotorSpeed sketch 126

Understanding the MotorSpeed sketch 127

Controlling the Speed of Your Motor 128

The MotorControl sketch 128

Understanding the MotorControl Sketch 131

Tweaking the MotorControl sketch 131

Getting to Know Servo motors 132

Creating Sweeping Movements 133

The Sweep sketch 133

Understanding the Sweep sketch 136

Controlling Your Servo 138

The Knob sketch 138

Understanding the Knob sketch 141

Making Noises 142

Piezo buzzer 142

The toneMelody sketch 143

Understanding the sketch 149

Making an Instrument 153

The PitchFollower sketch 153

Understanding the sketch 156

Part 3: Building on the Basics 159

Chapter 8: Learning by Example 161

Skube 161

How it works 162

Further reading 163

Chorus 163

How it works 164

Further reading 165

Push Snowboarding 165

How it works 165

Further reading 167

Baker Tweet 167

How it works 168

Further reading 168

The National Maritime Museum’s Compass Lounge and Compass Card 168

How it works 170

Further reading 171

The Good Night Lamp 171

How it works 171

Further reading 173

Little Printer 173

How it works 173

Further reading 174

Flap to Freedom 174

How it works 175

Further reading 176

Chapter 9: Soldering On 177

Understanding Soldering 177

Gathering What You Need for Soldering 178

Creating a workspace 178

Choosing a soldering iron 179

Solder 183

Third hand (helping hand) 184

Adhesive putty 184

Wire cutters 185

Wire strippers 186

Needle-nosed pliers 187

Multimeter 187

Solder sucker 187

Solder wick 187

Equipment wire 189

Staying Safe while Soldering 189

Handling your soldering iron 190

Keeping your eyes protected 190

Working in a ventilated environment 190

Cleaning your iron 190

Don’t eat the solder! 190

Assembling a Shield 191

Laying out all the pieces of the circuit 192

Assembly 194

Header pins 194

Acquiring Your Soldering Technique 195

Building Your Circuit 198

Knowing your circuit 199

Laying out your circuit 199

Preparing your wire 200

Soldering your circuit 200

Cleaning up 201

Testing your shield 201

Packaging Your Project 202

Enclosures 202

Wiring 203

Securing the board and other elements 204

Chapter 10: Getting Clever with Code 205

Blinking Better 205

Setting up the BlinkWithoutDelay sketch 207

Understanding the BlinkWithoutDelay sketch 210

Taking the Bounce Out of Your Button 212

Setting up the Debounce sketch 212

Understanding the Debounce sketch 216

Making a Better Button 218

Setting up the StateChangeDetection sketch 218

Understanding the StateChangeDetection sketch 222

Smoothing Your Sensors 225

Setting up the Smoothing sketch 225

Understanding the Smoothing sketch 228

Calibrating Your Inputs 231

Setting up the Calibration sketch 231

Understanding the Calibration sketch 234

Chapter 11: Common Sense with Common Sensors 237

Making Buttons Easier 238

Implementing the DigitalInputPullup sketch 239

Understanding the DigitalInputPullup sketch 242

Exploring Piezo Sensors 243

Implementing the Knock sketch 244

Understanding the Knock sketch 247

Utilizing Pressure, Force, and Load Sensors 249

Implementing the toneKeyboard sketch 251

Understanding the toneKeyboard sketch 254

Sensing with Style 255

Implementing the CapPinSketch sketch 258

Understanding the CapPinSketch sketch 261

Tripping Along with Lasers 264

Implementing the AnalogInOutSerial sketch 265

Understanding the AnalogInOutSerial sketch 268

Detecting Movement 269

Implementing the DigitalReadSerial sketch 270

Understanding the DigitalReadSerial sketch 273

Measuring Distance 274

Implementing the MaxSonar sketch 275

Understanding the MaxSonar sketch 278

Testing, Testing Can Anybody Hear This? 280

Implementing the AnalogInOutSerial sketch 281

Understanding the AnalogInOutSerial sketch 284

Chapter 12: Becoming a Specialist with Shields and Libraries 285

Looking at Shields 286

Considering combinations 286

Reviewing the field 287

Staying current 297

Browsing the Libraries 298

Reviewing the standard libraries 299

Installing additional libraries 300

Obtaining contributed libraries 302

Part 4: Sussing Out Software 303

Chapter 13: Getting to Know Processing 305

Looking Under the Hood 306

Installing Processing 307

Taking a look at Processing 309

Trying Your First Processing Sketch 311

Drawing shapes 314

Changing color and opacity 317

Playing with interaction 320

Chapter 14: Processing the Physical World 323

Making a Virtual Button 323

Setting up the Arduino code 325

Setting up the Processing code 326

Understanding the Processing PhysicalPixel sketch 329

Understanding the Arduino PhysicalPixel sketch 332

Drawing a Graph 334

Setting up the Arduino code 336

Setting up the Processing code 337

Understanding the Arduino Graph sketch 340

Understanding the Processing Graph sketch 340

Sending Multiple Signals 344

Setting up the Arduino code 346

Setting up the Processing code 348

Understanding the Arduino SerialCallResponse sketch 350

Understanding the Processing SerialCallResponse sketch 352

Part 5: The Part of Tens 357

Chapter 15: Ten Places to Learn More about Arduino 359

Arduino Blog 359

Hack a Day 360

SparkFun 360

MAKE 360

Adafruit 360

Instructables 361

YouTube 361

Hackerspaces 361

Forum 361

Friends, Colleagues, and Workshops 362

Chapter 16: Ten Great Shops to Know 363

Adafruit 363

Arduino Store 364

Seeed Studio 364

SparkFun 364

Allied Electroncs 365

Newark Electronics 365

Mouser 365

Digi-Key 365

eBay 366

Dumpster Diving 366

Index 367

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