Building your first circuit. In the last chapter, we learned a bit about the Arduino and its parts. We also were introduced to some of the components and tools you will be using to complete the projects in this book. In this chapter, you will learn some of the electronics practice and theory you will […]

What’s a schematic? A schematic is a diagram of the relationships of the electronic components in a circuit. In a schematic, we see the components that are part of the circuit and how they are attached to each other. Let’s start by looking at a simple schematic that represents our basic circuit. We’ll get into […]

How do we attach the components to build a circuit? If we take a look at the picture of our finished basic circuit again, we will notice that there is a breadboard beneath all of the components. Why do we use a breadboard? The breadboard allows us to connect all of our components in one […]

Building a basic circuit: the parts We’re going to build our first circuit! You will need these parts and tools. breadboard 9V battery battery cap 1 LED 330 Ohm resistor (bands colored orange, orange, brown, gold) jumper wires needlenose pliers Get all of your parts together to start building. Building a basic circuit: step by […]

Power for our circuit: electricity The term power has a very specific meaning when talking about electricity, which we will explain later. For the moment, power here refers to the fact that electricity comes from our battery, passes through the resistor to the LED, and lights it up. Let’s take a closer look at how […]

Something went wrong or doesn’t work right? Debugging! What if it didn’t light up? What might be wrong? Checking your circuit to see what is wrong is called debugging. Debugging is not just about solving the immediate problem, but also about creating a checklist of possible issues and solving them one by one. Sometimes the […]

Meet the mult-i-meter Another way to find out information about your circuits is by using a multimeter (pronounced “mult”-”E”-”meter”). A multimeter is a critical tool for checking to make sure that our electronic and Arduino projects are running correctly and that all of our parts are functional. Our multimeter will be a great tool to […]

Testing for continuity with a multimeter Continuity is an electrical property that shows whether there is a connection between parts. We can use the meter to test this property. It’s a good way to get familiar with the parts of your meter. And we’re going to use it for debugging your circuit! First you’ll see […]

The Arduino is just the thing to solve your every day interactive needs. Now that you’ve got your Arduino and a number of parts and tools, let’s look at them in more depth. In this chapter, you’ll learn about the parts of the Arduino and you’ll learn how to attach it to a computer and […]

Plug your Arduino into your computer. We’ll need a USB A-B cable, a computer, and an Arduino Uno. First plug the USB cable into one of your computer’s USB ports. Next, plug the USB cable into the USB port on the Arduino. Here’s a top view of the USB port on the Arduino with the […]