Arduino : Introduction

Holidays are the perfect time to explore,learn and build things. It’s holiday time for me and I thought why not build something using Arduino. Arduino is a tiny microcontroller development board using which one can build cool projects. Actually am regretting now that why didn’t I took it early like in my first year of engineering I could have learnt lot many things, But it's never too late to learn something, So here I have compiled some points about Arduino

which might help a beginner.

 What is Arduino?

Before beginning to use it lets know a little bit about Arduino.

Arduino is an open source microcontroller development board. Designed and manufactured in Italy. This project was started with a purpose of providing students

and enthusiasts a cheap but powerful development board in order to learn, experiment and build. The available development boards at that time were costing nearly 100$ and Arduino costs one fourth of it. All the resources and designs of Arduino are licensed under Creative Commons and are free to use and modify.

There are different models of Arduino boards like Arduino Uno, Arduino Leonardo, Arduino Mega, Arduino lily pad etc.,

Which board to choose?

It depends on developer on selecting the board depending upon the requirements of project he/she is building. If one is planning to use it initially to learn and experiment then it’s better to select Arduino Uno.

As I mentioned earlier Arduino is an open source project, its schematics are available in their website. So the boards can be bought online or can even be realized on a breadboard using the schematics. Interested can even manufacture it themselves.

I bought an Arduino Uno R3 from Snapdeal for Rs 560. The board actually cost around 1600 but one can get a best deal in amazon, snapdeal or flipkart.

Components Required for Initial setup:

•         An Arduino board ( Arduino Uno R3) 
•      USB A to B cable 
•      Bread Board 
•      LEDs and Resistors.

USB cable will be available in any computer store. The cable will power the Arduino board when it’s connected to the computer and it is also used to load the program into it. Even power supply can be given externally when it isn’t connected to the computer.

Initial Setup:

Arduino is provided with its own IDE to program it. Download the IDE from www.arduiono.cc . Install it and reboot the system.

Connect the Board to computer using USB A to B cable.

Then go to Control Panel > System and Security > System > Device Manager

There select Ports (COM & LPT)

The connected Arduino Uno should be listed there as shown in the Picture.

If a yellow caution mark appears on the name which mean that device diver isn’t recognized by the computer then

> Right click on the device name > Update device Software > Browse my computer driver for software 

> Then go to the folder of Arduino IDE which by default will be stored in program files in local disk C and point it to the folder drivers. 

> Run the Arduino IDE.

> Go to Tools > Serial Monitor.

A pop up box should appear as shown in the below picture.

If an error occurs which again mean the absence of device driver try the above mentioned method again or try reinstalling the IDE and reboot the system. While reinstalling change the destination folder (This actually for me :-D ).

Hello World:

Let’s write the first program. This program blinks a LED. Blinking LED is like Hello world programs in software programming for physical computing ;-).

As you launch the IDE initially there will be two functions displayed into by default.

Void setup() is used for initial setups in the program.

Void loop() is used for repeating certain segments in the program again and again.

The program is written in C. All the details about programming language is available in their website.

Type the following program in the IDE.

int pin=13;

void setup() {

  pinMode(13,OUTPUT);

}

void loop() {

    digitalWrite(pin,HIGH);

  delay(500);

  digitalWrite(pin,LOW);

  delay(500);

}

'pin' is a variable which holds the pin number which is used in the program. Even pin number can be used directly instead of variable, delay() function generates a delay in terms of milliseconds.

> Go to sketch Compile it.

> If no error occurs, Upload it. 

A led near the pin 13 which is marked by L should blink with 0.5 second delay.

For clarity a LED can be connected externally between pin 13 and Ground to see it blinking.

Many more example programs are available in their website. The only way to learn something is continuously experimenting with what we have learnt. Limitless Creative and awesome things can be built using Arduino. Only imagination is the limit to what we build other than its processing speed :-P. Even Arduino can be used along with the Raspberry Pi to build things. It’s design can be changed and many more chip sets like DAC, Wi-Fi and also Ethernet ports can be included.

Hope this post was useful will be back with many more.

Have a good day.