Arduino Toolkit for Virtual Breadboard
Do you want to prototype and test your Arduino projects without having to buy or wire physical components? Do you want to apply Test-Driven Development (TDD) to improve your code quality and understanding? If yes, then you might be interested in the Arduino Toolkit for Virtual Breadboard, a software that allows you to simulate Arduino circuits and components on your computer.
Arduino Toolkit For Virtual Breadboard
What is Virtual Breadboard?
Virtual Breadboard (VBB) is a tool for rapidly prototyping electronic circuits for microcontroller firmware development. It allows you to connect real or virtual components to your Arduino board and test your code in a simulated environment. You can also use VBB to create graphical user interfaces, animations, games, and more.
What is Arduino Toolkit?
Arduino Toolkit is a pay-feature of VBB that enables Arduino emulation. It is a collection of virtual components that work with your physical microcontroller via the EDGEY interface. Some of these components are:
LiquidCrystal: A liquid crystal display via 4-bit parallel interface.
OLED SSD1306: An OLED 128x64 display via SPI interface.
NEOPIXELS: Neopixel strips and arrays via WS2812 pixel pulse width interface.
Max 7219: A MAX7219 chip via SPI with up to 8 segment 7 displays.
EPaper: An EPaper 122x250 display via SPI with BSY signals.
DSO: An 8MHz logic analyzer capture.
Servo: A servo motor with pulse width controller.
How to use Arduino Toolkit?
To use Arduino Toolkit, you need to have the VBB software installed on your computer. You can get it from the Microsoft Store or from the official website. Once you have installed the software, you can launch it and click on the "File" menu, then select "Open". A dialog box will appear where you can browse for the Arduino Toolkit file, which has a .vbb extension. You can download the file from here. After you open the file, you will see a virtual breadboard with various components connected to an Arduino Uno board.
To use these components, you need to connect them to your physical microcontroller using the EDGEY interface. The EDGEY interface is a device that connects your microcontroller to your computer via USB and allows you to communicate with virtual components hosted by VBB. You can buy an EDGEY interface from here or build your own using this guide.
Once you have connected your microcontroller to the EDGEY interface, you can upload your code to it using the Arduino IDE or any other compatible software. Then, you can run the virtual circuit in VBB and see how your code interacts with the virtual components.
How to apply TDD with Arduino Toolkit?
TDD is a software development methodology that improves code quality, understanding and developer satisfaction. It involves writing tests before writing code, and then writing code that passes the tests. TDD helps you to avoid bugs, refactor your code easily, document your code implicitly, and design your code better.
To apply TDD with Arduino Toolkit, you need to use a testing framework that supports Arduino, such as Unity or CppUTest. You can write your tests in C or C++ and run them on your microcontroller or on your computer using a simulator. You can also use VBB to visualize the results of your tests and debug your code.
Conclusion
Arduino Toolkit for Virtual Breadboard is a powerful and useful software that allows you to simulate Arduino circuits and components on your computer. It can help you to prototype and test your projects faster and easier, as well as apply TDD to improve your code quality and understanding. If you are interested in Arduino Toolkit, you can purchase it from the webshop or get a discount from the KickStarter campaign.
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