1. Breadboards and LED’s with Arduino
A Microcontroller

2. Notes
This material has been put together by the Outreach coordinator of the School of Engineering and Computer Studies (SECS) at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW), New Zealand.
It is free to distribute and pass on to all who may find it useful.
The author of this presentation and supporting documents can be reached at:

3. Prior knowledge (Year 10 science)
Voltage, Current, Resistance and Ohm’s law
ohms-law
What is a circuit
Working with wire
Reading schematics

4. Learning Objectives
Students learn about, how and why to use a breadboard
Students can identify patterns about connector colours
Students can configure and use a POT
Students can configure a basic RGB LED

5. Breadboards
Orientation doesn’t matter, what matters is the connections across the slots:
Power rail
Ground rail

6. Inside a breadboard
The wholes/slots are also called tie points

7. Why is it called a breadboard?
Wire wrap
1960’s

8. Why use one? No soldering required Reusable Prototyping
Extending connectors for GND and Power

9. Exercise 3 – Fade…
Run the Fade script: <File>,<Example>,<01. Basics>,<Fade>
Normally we would use the blink script as a test, but this is just to explore a slightly different effect and using a breadboard
This script uses a basic PWM (thus pin 9 marked with the ~)
Note on the code: 255 – modified by a fade amount (5) with a small delay (30ms)

10. Journal entry
Date it!!!
Aim, Equipment, method, experiment, conclusion
For the method: fritzing diagram
Also for method: a copy of the code (annotate this)
Experiment: what you are exploring/changing (note it on the code that you have added to your journal)
Conclusion: notes on what you found through exploring the code and changing it.
Note down a real world example or application

11. Colour coding Does it matter what colour the wires/connectors are?
Generally for connectors no
But for sensors and other modules they usually follow a code:
Red -> danger -> power
Black/brown -> darkest colour -> GND (ground)
White/Yellow -> lightest colour -> communications
Note this in your journal…

12. Exercise 4 - Potentiometer (Pot)
When you turn the knob of a Pot the resistance changes, so they are sometimes called variable resistors.
At a pots lowest level of resistance they let enough current though to read as HIGH (5v)
At a pots highest level of resistance they let enough current though to read as LOW (0v)

13. So now… It should be becoming familiar….
Date, aim, kit, method, experiment, conclusion
Add a fritzing diagram
Add a copy of the code
Annotate the code with notes on what changing the code does
Make some notes in the conclusion, I could use this for, I am interested in this because, it is used for ‘x’ in the real world….

14. Journal…

15. Pot What happens when you turn the Pot? What could we use a Pot for?
<File>, <Examples>, <SIK_Guide_Code_32>, <Circuit_02>

16. Advanced concepts The Pot is an analog device
Computers count in bits/bytes -> range of 0 to 1023
So it is not just HIGH/LOW, it is a function with a range of
The Arduino can read external voltages on the analog input pins using a built-in function called analogRead(). This function takes one input value, the analog pin we're using (sensorPin, which we earlier set to 0). It returns an integer number that ranges from 0 (0 Volts) to 1023 (5 Volts). (SIK circuit 2)

17. Exercise 5 - RGD LED
<File>, <Examples>, <SIK_Guide_Code_32>, <Circuit_03>
Where have you seen a RGB LED used?

18. Fritzing diagram:
The diagram uses connectors related in colour to the pins of the RGB LED (yellow instead of red so as not to confuse it with power)

19. Notes on the code
A "function" is a named block of code, that performs a specific purpose. A number of functions are already built-in to the Arduino, and you can write ones yourself
A variable is a named number, they can be different data types (more on this another lesson). You must "declare" variables before you use them, so that the computer knows about them
‘int’ = integer, a named variable
The ‘const int RED _PIN = 9;’ indicates a constant that wont change

20. Random resources
pulse-width-modulation-using-analogwrite/
breadboard/step3/Lets-make-something-circuit-1/