Tinkercad, Arduino

• TinkerCAD

  • a free online service for creating basic 3D shapes and developing digital prototypes of electronic components.
  • the process used in TinkerCAD is often used for rapid prototyping.
• Prototyping

  • is a process where we can develop components in a flexible manner than can be quickly updated and modified to test a variety of options when developing a project or product.
• Arduino

  • is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software.
  • consists of a circuit board, which can be programmed and a ready-made software
  • is used to write and upload the computer code to the physical board.
• Arduino IDE

  • Integrated Development Environment
  • used to write and upload the computer code to the physical board.
• Arduino are able to:

  • read inputs - light on a sensor, a finger on a button, or a Twitter message
  • turn it into an output - activating a motor, turning on an LED, publishing something online.
• Barrel Jack

  • or DC Power Jack can be used to power your Arduino board and usually connected to a wall adapter.
  • The recommended voltage for most Arduino models is between 6 and 12 Volts.
• VIN Pin

  • This pin is used to power the Arduino Uno board using an external power source.
• USB Cable

  • when connected to the computer, provides 5 volts at 500mA
• Do not use a power supply greater than 12 volts as you will overpower (and thereby destroy) your Arduino. The recommended voltage for most Arduino models is between 6 and 12 Volts.
• Power

  • Barrel Jack
  • USB Cable
  • VIN Pin
• GND

  • These pins are used to ground circuits.
• 5V & 3.3V

  • This pin provides 5V or 3.3V to the circuits.
• Analog Pins

  • These pins are for reading analog voltage value from sensors and convert them into a digital value, that can be read. In Arduino Uno, there are 6 analog pins labeled A0-A5.
• Digital Pins

  • These are for both digital input (reading the state of the switch) and digital output controlling the LED).
  • In Arduino Uno, there are 14 digital pins
• PWM Pins

  • the tilde (~) next to some of the digital pins (3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11 on the UNO). These pins act as normal digital pins, but can also be used for something called Pulse-Width Modulation
  • They are used as analog output (like fading an LED in and out).
• RX – TX

  • These are serial communication pins, used to communicate with other Arduino boards as well as computers.
• Pins

  • Analog Pins
  • GND
  • 5V & 3.3V
  • Digital Pins
  • PWM Pins
  • RX - TX
• Reset Button

  • This button is used to restart the code that is loaded on the Arduino.
• Power Indicator LED

  • This LED should light up whenever you plug your Arduino into a power source. If this light doesn’t turn on, there’s a good chance something is wrong.
• RX - TX LED

  • These LEDs will give us some nice visual indications whenever our Arduino is receiving or transmitting data.
• pin 13 LED

  • Arduino Uno has an inbuilt LED connected to digital pin 13.
  • Whenever the pin is HIGH, LED lights up and when it is LOW, LED is Off.
• Wires to Use in Arduino

  • Female to Female
  • Male to Male
  • Female to Male
• Breadboard

  • A Breadboard is simply a board for prototyping or building circuits on.
  • It allows you to place components and connections on the board to make circuits without soldering.
  • The holes in the breadboard take care of your connections by physically holding onto parts or wires where you put them and electrically connecting them inside the board.
• Sketch

  • The first new terminology of the Arduino program.
  • It is a set of instructions that tells the board what functions it needs to perform.
  • An Arduino board can only hold and perform one sketch at a time.
• Setup() function

  • is used to initialize the variables, pin modes, start using libraries, etc. The setup function will only run once, after each power up or reset of the Arduino board.
• Loop() function

  • does loops consecutively, allowing your program to change and respond. Use it to actively control the Arduino board.
• DATA TYPES

  • in C refers to an extensive system used for declaring variables or functions of different types.
  • The type of a variable determines how much space it occupies in the storage and how the bit pattern stored is interpreted.
• Void

  • keyword is used only in function declarations.
  • It indicates that the function is expected to return no information to the function from which it was called.
• int

  • short for Integers are the primary data-type for whole numbers storage.
  • stores a 16-bit (2-byte) value.
• char

  • data type that takes up 1 byte of memory that stores a character value.
  • written in single quotes like this: 'A' and for multiple characters, strings use double quotes: "ABC".
• float

  • data type is for floating-point number that has a decimal point.
  • Floating-point numbers are often used to approximate the analog and continuous values because they have greater resolution than integers.
• Syntax Statement

  • is the structure, or order of the elements in a language statement.
  • It defines how declarations, functions, commands, and other statements should be arranged.
• variables

  • is a place to store a piece of data.
  • It has a name, a value, and a type.
  • are needed to be declared with the specific data type.
• Local Variables

  • variables declared inside a function or block.
  • They can be used only by the statements that are inside that function or block of code.
• Global Variables

  • variables defined outside of all the functions, usually at the top of the program.
  • They can be accessed by any function and is available for use throughout the entire program after its declaration.
• #include

  • is used to include outside libraries in your sketch.
  • This gives the programmer access to a large group of standard C libraries (groups of pre-made functions), and also libraries written especially for Arduino.
• ; Semicolon

  • is used to end a statement.
• // comments

  • are lines in the program that are used to inform yourself or others about the way the program works.
• Multi-line Comment /*aa*/

  • This type of comment is called so as this can extend over more than one line; once the compiler reads the /* it ignores whatever follows until it encounters a */.
• Curly Braces

  • are used in several different constructs and outlines for Functions, Loops and Conditional Statements.