>_ Things Lab

An hour of Arduino and Ardublock

Introductory workshop

Computer Science Education Week

Week of Code in Things Lab

What is Arduino?

• Arduino is a a single board microcontroller and also an Open Source development environment, used to create functional and creative projects (also a powerful base platform for DIY projects).

Components

• Arduino is attached to a breadboard and connected to a computer via a USB cable.

• Components we are going to use for the workshop include: LEDs, resistors (330 and 10K ohms), photoresistors, wires, but there are a lot of other ones.

Ardublock

• Arduino is programmed in a language based on C, called Wiring.

• Today we are not going to learn to actually program Arduino using Wiring, but something much simpler and fun, called Ardublock.

• It is a graphical programming environment used to make the Arduino programming as simple as drag and drop.

How to get Arduino IDE and Ardublock?

• Link for dowloading Arduino IDE:

http://arduino.cc/en/main/software

• Link for dowloading Ardublock:

http://blog.ardublock.com/engetting-started-ardublockzhardublock/

Installing Ardublock…

• Open C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Arduino

• Create a folder named ‘tools’, inside it create a folder named ‘ArduBlockTool’, againg, inside it create a folder named ‘tool’ and copy there the ardublock-all.jar files.

• !!! Careful, the folder names are case-sensitive!!!

• Open Arduino IDE. Under the menu <Tools> you should have ArduBlock. Click it and… Voila! Let the fun begin

Hello, world! | Blinking Led

ArduBlock scheme

Traffic Light? Challenge accepted!

• Now that you’ve learn how to turn ON and OFF a LED, you can make a traffic light using three ones.

• The logic goes this way: each LED is connected to a digital pin, e.g #1, #2, #3. At first, all LEDs are off. Then, #1 is ON, others still OFF. #2 becomes ON, #1 goes OFF. #3 goes ON, #2 goes OFF. Can you make it?

You’ve got 15 minutes!

• The one that finishes first, meaning scheme done right and code working, will get a COOL PRIZE!

• 20, 19, 18 …

One of a lot of possible solutions

Photoresistor

• An alternative of Ardublock is BlocklyDuino. Link: http://www.gasolin.idv.tw/public/blockly/demos/blocklyduino/index.html

• Now that you’ve got some basics of Arduino, you can start to program it using real code and explore more by yourself. You can find a lot of tutorials/examples/schemes/code online.

Thank you for your time and attention!

• >_ Things Lab

• Week of Code, 10th December 2014

• Computer Science Education Week