Arduino fun
Arduino with range finder and two servos
In the past month or so, I’ve been playing with an Arduino in my spare time. For those not familiar with Arduinos, it is an inexpensive and popular electronics prototyping platform. You can hook up various electronic components (sensors, lights, motors, etc), and then write programs in a simple variant of “C” to control it. I still have a ways to go in my understanding of electricity/electronics, but it has been a blast trying out new components and seeing how it works. After almost two decades of writing software, it is nice to work on a platform that can interact with the physical world. So far, I’ve used:
- LEDs
- Resistors
- Potentiometers (variable resistors)
- Ultrasonic distance sensors
- Infrared motion detectors
- Pressure sensors
- Light sensors (photocells)
- Servos
I’m taking a class in soldering at the Tech Shop on Friday evening, and hopefully this will allow me to make some more complex devices.
If you are curious about messing around with Arduinos, I recommend the following:
- TodBot’s Bionic Arduino class material
- Lady Ada’s Arduino tutorial