8. Introduction to the Arduino (In Progress)

Description:

This experiment introduces the Arduino prototyping platform for use in Digital Electronics. This is a low-cost platform that can be used for electronics project to develop quite impressive embedded systems.

Note: The full set of videos is presented on the YouTube channel: DerekMolloyDCU

Equipment Required:

- Arduino Board

- USB Cable

- LEDs, Resistors, Push-button

NOTE: You will be charged for the replacement of the Arduino board if you do not comply with the following:

- Please ensure that you disconnect the power (i.e. the USB Cable) from the Arduino when you are wiring the circuits that connect to the Arduino.

- Do not short the pins on the board. One mistake that may damage the board is to connect a LED from one of the pins to ground (as an ideal LED acts as a short (in one direction)). This may damage the board. Pin 13 has an on-board resistor and is different.

Introduction

As stated on the Aduino website (www.arduino.cc) the "Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments." The Arduino can be quickly and easily connected to the Internet (using an Ethernet Shield) allowing us to control a device over the Internet, read sensor values over the Internet and to develop large scale sensor networks.

The first experiment describes how to get started with the Arduino.

So, once you have installed and built your first basic circuit we will develop some more complex examples.

Question for you to try:

Design a traffic lights system, where there is one set of lights for cars travelling on the road and one set of lights for pedestrians. When a button is pressed it activates the pedestrian lights, allowing them enough time to traverse the road safely.

Example of my implementation:

Solution:

Here is my solution - it is not perfect, but good enough. The code is discussed in the video and the code solution is below (see EE223TrafficLights.h and EE223TrafficLights.pde Attachments at the bottom of the page). Your code may be completely different from mine and still work perfectly.