Getting started with Arduino
In today’s world we use microcontrollers more and more. These marvels of modern electronics are all-pervading, yet their use is so subtle that we often use them without realising it. Billions are sold every year!
We use the in devices such as:
- The security token device use in online banking
- Mobile phones, to set up and oversee our calls
- Microwave ovens to control the display and operation
- Engine management systems in our cars – increasingly we are ‘driving-by-wire’
- Digital cameras to control the focus and shutter controls
- Television remote controls
At Matrix TSL, although PIC programming has been a focus for a number of years, and a number of our hardware solutions are based on PIC centred devices, Arduino has become more and more the chosen development hardware of both professional engineers and those starting out with microcontroller development alike.
With this in mind, we have created these free learning resources for those getting started with Arduino, or if you’re looking to get into a more advanced Arduino IDE such as Flowcode.
Simple microcontroller circuits – Arduino
Flowcode Arduino Beginners Guide
What’s more, we have also adapted our very own Eblocks rapid-prototyping suite of hardware for the popular Arduino platform, too. Our EB092 and EB093 Arduino shields allow allow an Arduino compatible board to be connected into an E-blocks system.
Eblocks is a popular platform in both education and professional markets for rapid prototyping designs. In education in particular, the way Eblocks solutions are developed and can be snapped together to form a wide variety of fully functioning systems, lends itself perfectly to learning environments.
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This Arduino coarse looks like it will be fun and educational as well. Just what I need to learn v6 flowcode. Keep up the good work guys.
Errors in the SE1498 doc that I found in the first few minutes….
1) You can’t run an Uno with 5V into the jack, it’s upstream of a regulator. Arduino specify 6V minimum there, with 7V recommended. (But you can put 5V into the USB.)
2) You shouldn’t use pins 0 and 1 for IO, since those pins are used for serial comms to the board from the PC.
3) …. this is the biggy…. It is SUCH bad practice to use blocking code such as you have with the delay for the flashing LED. While it might seem a trivial issue in a trivial program, the Arduino forum has a zillion questions about how to get a program to do things simultaneously* which of course you can’t do with blocking code. If students are taught to block first time at bat, they write all their code that way by default. Then when they need to get two leds to flash independently, they’re screwed. (* Yes, I know a single thread uP can’t *really* do two things at once, but if the code doesn’t block then it can give the illusion of doing so even with a slow chip like in a Uno.)
Regards,
Jim