Arduino Blink Activity

Blink and the Arduino Programming Environment

The following diagram uses a breadboard to connect the circuit illustrated in the Arduino blink tutorial

Learning Goals:

In this skills activity you will learn to:

connect the Arduino to the computer or Chromebook and upload a sketch
make changes to the sketch to control the timing of the led blink.
make changes to the sketch to connect the led to a different pin on the Arduino.
Create and use a variable to make your programming easier to read and edit.
wire a simple LED circuit on a breadboard.

Procedure:

Building the circuit:

The Yellow wire connects the GND ground pin of the Arduino to the negative - header row across the bottom of the breadboard. yours does not need to be yellow.
The Black wire connects the Arduino 13 pin to one of the numbered columns on the top half of the breadboard.
The 220-ohm resistor (red, red, brown, gold) connects the same numbered column as the black wire to a column in the lower half of the breadboard.
The + Anode (longer) lead of the LED is connected to the same column as the resistor.
The - Cathode (shorter) lead of the LED is connected to the - Negative header row across the bottom.
Connecting the Arduino to a school windows PC
- obtain a USB cable from the drawers in the back left corner class or there should be one in your drawer.
- Watch the lower right corner of the screen the first time you plug the Arduino in to ensure the driver load.
- set the board type from the tools menu to Uno it may select automatically
- Set the serial port from the Tools menu usually the highest number in the list. ( the Arduino must be connected to the computer or the port will not show in the list)

Chromebook / Arduino Create instructions:

Go to the Chrome Web Store and install the Arduino Create for Education app.
Connect the Arduino to the Chromebook the following line should show in the window at the top of the page.
Arduino Uno /dev/ttyACM0

Loading your first sketch

For your first program click on examples on the left (the create app) or in the File menu (windows) hen basics then blink.

- This will open the blink program sketch on your computer.
- When you are ready click the upload button follow ( right-pointing arrow) the messages at the bottom of the Arduino Window to ensure your program uploads.
- Red text will appear in the bottom window if it does not load properly. AVR Dude indicates an upload issue check the boards and ports are set properly.
The Circuit should blink the LED at about a 1-second interval.
In this program the lines delay(1000); control the speed the LED blinks at
Experiment with the values in the delay command to speed up or slow down the blink.
Each time you change the value you will need to upload the program again.
At what point does the LED appear to be on continuously?

Step Two

At the top of the program add the line int ledPin=13;
Change the word LED_BUILTIN that appears in the sketch to the word ledPin.
The line you just added creates a variable called ledPin and makes that variable equal to the number 13, by changing what ledPin is equal to we change the value everywhere that variable is used.
The program is set up to control the led when it is connected to pin 13, change the value to any number between 2 and 12
Move the wire connected to pin 13 to the numbered pin in your modified program.
upload the program again and see if the led blinking is connected to the new pin.
Go and complete the Arduino Activity sheet attached to the Google Classroom Assignment