Table Of ContentMake:
Learn ElEctronics
with arduino
An Illustrated Beginner’s
guIde to PhysIcAl ComputIng
Jody Culkin and Eric Hagan
Copyright © 2017 Jody Culkin and Eric Hagan. All rights reserved.
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dedication
Dedicated to all of our students, past, present, and future. Their
curiosity drives them and inspires us.
iv
contEnts
Acknowledgments vii Back to Debugging Our Circuit 69
Summary 71
About the Authors viii
4 Programming the Arduino 73
Preface ix
Arduino, Circuits, and Code:
1 Introduction to Arduino 1 Bringing Everything Together 74
Physical Computing 3 What’s an IDE? 75
Prototyping 3 Downloading the Arduino IDE:
What Will I Need and Where Getting Started 78
Can I Get It? 4 The Sketch: The Basic Unit of
Parts and Tools 5 Arduino Programming 90
Resources 12 Debugging: What to Do if the
Summary 13 LED Isn’t Blinking 96
LEA4_Blink Sketch: An Overview 98
2 Your Arduino 15
setup() and loop(): The Guts of
Parts of an Arduino 16 Your Code 101
Plug Your Arduino into Your Looking at loop(): What Happens
Computer 20 Over and Over 109
Components and Tools 26 A Schematic of the Arduino 115
Summary 30 Building the Basic Circuit 118
SOS Signal Light: Creating More
3 Meet the Circuit 31
Complex Timing 125
The Circuit: Building Block of Summary 135
Electronics 32
5 Electricity and Metering 137
The Schematic 37
Using a Breadboard 42 Understanding Electricity 138
Building a Circuit 48 Build the Circuit Step by Step 140
A Look at the Battery 52 Electricity: An Overview 144
Power for Our Circuit: Electricity 55 Understanding Electricity:
Debugging the Circuit 57 The Water Tank Analogy 148
The Multimeter 60 Voltage: The Potential 149
Using the Multimeter 65 Current: The Flow 159
v
Resistance: Restricting the Flow 167 Serial Communication 269
Voltage, Current, Resistance: Adding the Speaker 278
Review 173 Adding the Photoresistor 282
How Do Voltage, Current, and Summary 288
Resistance Interact? Ohm’s Law 177
8 Servo Motors 289
Components in Parallel and Series 180
Summary 192 Waving the Flags 291
Servos Up Close 292
6 Switches, LEDs, and More 193
Building the Servo Circuit
Interactivity! 194 Step by Step 295
Digital Inputs and Outputs LEA8_Sweep Overview 301
Overview 195 What’s a for Loop? 304
Digital Input: Add a Button 197 Operators 309
Looking at the Sketch: Variables 206 The for Loop in the Sketch 312
Digital Input Refresher 213 Add Interactivity:
Looking at the Sketch: Conditional Turn the Flag 314
Statements 215 LEA8_Knob Explained 317
Add a Speaker and Adjust Two Flags Waving: Add a
the Code 220 Second Servo Motor 320
Add Two More Buttons and LEA8_2_servos, First Look 322
Adjust the Code 227 Summary 332
Reviewing Electronic and Code
9 Building Your Projects 333
Concepts 236
Summary 239 Project Management 334
A Few Helpful Components 338
7 Analog Values 241
Types of Projects 342
There’s More to Life than On Other Versions of the Arduino
and Off! 241 Board 345
Potentiometer Circuit, Step Document Your Project and
by Step 246 Share It! 348
The LEA7_AnalogInOutSerial Summary 350
Sketch 254
A Appendix: Reading
Analog Input: Values from the
Resistor Codes 351
Potentiometer 259
Analog Values as Output: PWM 266 Identifying Resistors by Color Bands 351
vi
acknowLedgments
This book wouldn’t have been possible without the help of many
people, more than we can mention here. We’d like to thank our tech
editor, Anna Pinkas, for her tireless and thorough review of this text.
An earlier version of this book also benefited from tech editing by
Michael Colombo and Sharon Cichelli. Roger Stewart, our publisher
and editor, has been supportive and helpful throughout the process
of getting this book into print. Our production team from Happen-
stance Type-O-Rama has been a delight to work with, particularly
Liz Welch and Maureen Forys. We met at the Interactive Telecom-
munications Program at New York University, and we will always be
grateful to Tom Igoe for suggesting we work together on a project
there. In fact, we’d like to thank all of the faculty and staff at ITP,
especially Dan O’Sullivan and Marianne Petit.
Eric would like to thank his wife Marie for her endless support,
without which this book would not be possible. He would also like to
thank his parents, David and Tracey, who have always had so much
faith in his work.
Jody would like to thank her husband Calvin Reid, who seems to
think she can do anything and has done whatever he can to make
that possible. And she would like to acknowledge the memory of her
parents, Florence and Hosmer Culkin, who would be startled but
proud that she has co-authored a book on technology.
vii
about thE authors
Jody Culkin is an artist and teacher. She has shown her sculptures,
photographs, and installations at museums and galleries through-
out this country and internationally. She illustrated How to Use a
Breadboard, written by Sean Ragan, for Maker Media (2017). Her
comic Arduino! has been translated into 12 languages. She has
received grants and awards from the National Science Foundation,
the New York State Council on the Arts, and many other organiza-
tions. She is currently a professor at City University of New York's
Borough of Manhattan Community College in the Media Arts and
Technology Department. She has a BA from Harvard University in
visual studies and an MPS from NYU's Interactive Telecommunica-
tions Program.
Eric Hagan is an interactive and kinetic artist and professor based
out of Astoria, New York. He has written articles for publications,
including Make: magazine and Popular Science. He has also worked
on several art installation projects around New York City, includ-
ing the annual holiday windows on 5th Avenue and Kara Walker’s
A Subtlety. He is currently an assistant professor at SUNY Old
Westbury in the Visual Arts Department. He has a BA from Duke
University in philosophy and an MPS from NYU's Interactive Tele-
communications Program. Eric enjoys showing projects at the
annual New York City World Maker Faire.
viii
