Powerpoint Slides for using ArduBlock and the SparkFun Lilypad Protosnap Development board. This is a slide deck used on the SparkFun National Tour

3. Introduction to Arduino
With ArduBlock & LilyPad Dev
Brian Huang
Education Engineer
brian.huang@sparkfun.com

4. Pre-Class Survey
http://bit.ly/14Xk3Ek

5. Resources
This PPT 
ArduBlock Download & Installation 
http://www.ardublock.com/

8. Installation Process
ArduBlock is a run-time Java script that must be
saved to a specific location on your computer.
The file ardublock-xxxx.jar must be inside the
following file structure within your Arduino
sketchbook:
ArduinotoolsArduBlockTooltool
Note: Folder names are case sensitive

9. General Rules
Raise your hand if you have a question.
Be respectful.
When I raise my hand…
Share your findings with the people near
you.
Poke around, experiment, and have fun…
Imagine, create, and play!!!

10. Objectives
Provide a thorough introduction to the Arduino
programming environment.
Develop a use of simple functions to interact
with the LEDs, light sensor, push button, and
buzzer on the Protosnap Pro Mini.

12. Arduino LilyPad Protosnap Dev
What is it?
What can it do?
Who cares?

13. What is it?
Heart of it – ATMega328 (a $4 microcontroller)
Open Source
High tolerance for ESD and “bad” electronics
practices…
Provides easy way to interact with a computer
physically – a.k.a. physical computing

14. What can it do?
- Great for prototyping
ideas
- Great to teach Intro to
Programming Arduino
(no assembly required!)
- Lots and lots of options!
- Large pads can be sew-
able

15. Who cares?
Hackers / Makers
Engineers
Artists
Musicians
Kids!
Teachers!!
You!!!

16. Physical Computing

17. What is all this stuff???
Components
Buzzer /
Speaker
Light
Sensor
Temp.
Sensor
the Brain
ATmega328
(16 MHz clock)

18. What is all this stuff???
Silk Screen & Pins
Actual Pins
on Atmega328

19. Startup Arduino IDE
Double-click on either
the Arduino Icon or
wherever you
installed (saved) the
Arduino program.

20. Plug it in

21. Lesson #0a – Setting up Arduino
1.Setup Board
(LilyPad Arduino w/ ATmega328)
2.Setup COM Port
PC – Highest COM #
Mac – /dev/tty.usbserial-A####xXx

22. Tools  Board
Setup Board

23. Tools  Serial Port
Setup COM Port
PC –
Highest COM #
Mac –
/dev/tty.usbserial-
A####xxx

24. Other Board Types

25. Tools  ArduBlock
Load ArduBlock

26. Programming
Area
Zoomed out
View
Programming
Blocks Palate

27. What is ArduBlock?
• Graphical Introduction to Programming
• Scratch-like interface
• Clear transition to text-based coding
• Generates real Arduino code in the
background.

28. Block Organization
Manipulating or modifying the program
flow or behavior.
Serial and I2C communication:
transferring data between devices & PC
Special utilities: Tone, servo, and
ultrasonic sensors
Creating, assigning, or using constants,
variables, or arrays.
Simple and complex math operations.
Boolean logic operations and
comparisons.
Reading or setting values (voltages) to
pins on the microcontroller.

29. Block Organization
Control
Manipulating or modifying the program
flow or behavior.

30. Pin # – any number
from 0 to 19
Values –
Pin # – 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, or
11 .
Values –
Allows the control of the pins on the Atmega328
chip – turning them on or off (like the light
switch)
Block Organization
Pins
or to
Notice the different
shapes?
Digital Values Analog (Number) Values

31. Lesson #0b – Test Upload
Notes:
• Click and drag blocks from the left pane to the Programming Area.
• Blocks should snap/click together.
• Right-click to copy-paste (clone) a block
• Drag blocks back to the left pane to discard.
Click Upload to Arduino and watch…
Create the following program -- What do you expect this to do?

32. Click back to the Arduino window to
check for status messages

33. What do you see?
LED on pin #13

35. What about turning the LED off?
Click to change the HIGH to a LOW

36. Let’s get to hacking…
Lesson #1 – What if I want to Blink?
“Hello World” of Physical Computing
Psuedo-code – how should this work?
Turn
LED ON
Wait
Turn
LED
OFF
Wait
Rinse &
Repeat

37. Let’s get to hacking…
Lesson #1 – What if I want to Blink?
“Hello World” of Physical Computing
Runs once at the beginning of code.
Repeats – continuously over and
over and over…

38. Example

39. What other LEDs can we play
with?
16 18 17

40. Pins with an A are actually Analog INPUT
pins – but they’re really identified as…
Digital Pins are numbered 0 to 13.
Analog Input Pins are A0 to A5. but…
Analog Pin Digital I/O ID
A0  14
A1  15
A2  16
A3  17
A4  18
A5  19
AnalogPinMapping

41. Alright? Let’s blink!
Challenge 1a – Blink to mimic a heartbeat
Challenge 1b – Blink multiple LEDs
First -- plan out a pattern on paper – then
start coding
Challenge 1c – Multiple LEDS – Knight
Rider (Cylon)-esque

43. Save your Project
• Save early, Save
often!
• Enumerate your
iterations – (e.g.
blink_10.adp,
blink_11.adp,
blink_12.adp…)

44. Speeding up and Slowing
Down…
What if we wanted to create a pattern that starts off
with a slow blink and gets faster and faster?
What part do we need to be able to change?
constant

45. Programming Concepts:
Using Variables
Variable Types:
8 bits 16 bits 32 bits
byte
char
int
unsigned int
long
unsigned long
float

46. Using Variables in ArduBlock
Numbers/Constants
Variable is just a
placeholder for a
value.
This placeholder can
be manipulated
within the code.

47. Start by setting a variable called
delayTime in the setup

48. Now… replace the 1000 in each
delay with the variable name

49. Decrement delayTime each loop
– using Math Operators

50. Example: Did you come up with
something like this?

51. What happens when you reach zero?
Let’s find out!

52. Debugging – how can we see what’s going on?
Serial Monitor
Serial print
command
Any
message
“glue”
Data

53. Add this block… so that we can
watch the variable value

54. Upload & Click back to Arduino
Open the Serial Monitor

55. How do we fix / prevent this from
happening?
If this is TRUE…
Do this.
Otherwise,
do this.
Conditional Logic:  If(), If() – else…

56. Logical Operators
Comparisons / Conditionals
Greater than
Less than
Equal to
Greater than or equal to
Less than or equal to
Not equal to

57. If delayTime <= 0… reset

58. Advanced…
Combinations of inequalities
Combine multiple conditions together using
or and and
Example:

59. Other than just turning an LED on
and off…
What else might we want to do?

60. Concept: Analog vs. Digital
Micro-controllers are digital devices – ON or OFF.
An Analog signal is anything that can be a full
range of values. xWhat are some examples?
Think of like a ramp or a hill.

61. Concept: Analog vs. Digital
To create an analog signal, the
microcontroller uses a technique called
PWM.
Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)
Pins 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11 are capable of producing an
Analog Output

62. Color Mixing with 3 LEDs
RGB LED
Challenge 2a:
1) Experiment with different values – what do you observe
happens? Be prepared to share with the class – what
did you try, and what did you see?
2) Do you observe anything strange about the behavior?
3) How do you create Orange? Purple? Magenta?
LED PINS
RED = 9
GREEN = 11
BLUE = 10
Change either of these
values… See what happens!

63. Color Mixing with 3 LEDs
Tri-color LED
The RGB LED is a Common-Anode (means the
positive side of the LED is all tied to Vcc).
The signal line is connected to the bottom of each
LED.
Don’t worry - it’s just a different method of
completing a circuit!
Pin
9
Pin
11
Pin
10
5 V
Value = 0 (LOW)  LED is ON
Value = 255 (HIGH)  LED is OFF

64. Color Mixing with 3 LEDs
Challenge 2b:
Experiment with different values of Red, Green, and Blue
to create a couple different colors.
Write down the values you used. Check these values
with www.colorpicker.com
Challenge 2c:
Create a unique lighting display that blinks, fades, or
switches colors. Be prepared to have a name for your art
piece and show this to the rest of the class.

65. Save your Project #2

66. New Challenge
Handling Inputs

67. A Simple Example
Try this bit of code.
What do you think will happen? Test it
and write down your observations.
DIG
INPUT 2

68. digital Inputs
Buttons / Slide Switches
INPUT A5
INPUT A5
(a.k.a. 19)
What about
this??
Analog Pin Digital I/O ID
A0  14
A1  15
A2  16
A3  17
A4  18
A5  19
AnalogPinMapping

69. digital Inputs
Buttons / Slide Switches
Challenge 3a:
Re-arrange the blocks or add new ones to:
• Blink LED quickly when the button is pressed.
• Otherwise blink slow
Same as
Pin A5

70. digital Inputs
Buttons / Slide Switches
Challenge 3b:
Now, using the button / switch – to start a disco/light changing
pattern
Challenge 3c:
Now, using the button / switch – to turn on and off the VIBE
motor.

71. Reading the
Light Sensor?
What is the biggest and smallest value the analog pin will
“measure”? [Hint: open your serial monitor to find out!]

72. Challenge
Use the light sensor input to affect the blink
rate of the LEDs.
Use the light sensor input to affect the speed
of a “knight-rider” or cylon display.
Use the light sensor to ___________.

73. Save your Project #3
Sensors

74. Making Music
Setting up the Speaker
Three simple blocks to play with…

75. Making Music
Let’s Play a song…
Twinkle-Twinkle:
CC GG AA G FF EE DD C GG
Happy Birthday:
G G A G C B G G A G D C G G G E C C B A
Hot Cross Buns:
B A G <> B A G <> G G G G <> A A A A B A G
Mary Had A Little Lamb:
B A G A BB B <> AA A <> BB B <>
B A G A BBBB AAA BAG.

76. Musical Notes / Frequencies
Note Frequency (Hz)
C4 261
C#
4/Db
4 277
D4 293
D#
4/Eb
4 311
E4 329
F4 349
F#
4/Gb
4 369
G4 392
G#
4/Ab
4 415
A4 440
A#
4/Bb
4 466
B4 493
Note Frequency (Hz)
C5 523
C#
5/Db
5 554
D5 587
D#
5/Eb
5 622
E5 659
F5 698
F#
5/Gb
5 739
G5 783
G#
5/Ab
5 830
A5 880
A#
5/Bb
5 932
B5 987

77. Save your Project #4
Tone

78. Getting started with Arduino

79. Additional Resources
http://www.sparkfun.com
http://learn.sparkfun.com
http://www.arduino.cc
http://www.bildr.org

80. SparkFun Tutorials and Projects
- GardenBot:
www.sparkfun.com/news/598
- High Altitude Balloon:
www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/180
- GPS Clock:
www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/47
- Earthquake Data Logger:
www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/235

81. Thousands of Amazing ideas…
The Cat Defender…
http://www.plasma2002.com/blenderdefende
r/
List of projects at Sparkfun:
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials

82. Questions?

83. Before leaving, please fill out a quick survey
so that I can get your e-mail and a little
info about your familiarity with Arduino /
Sparkfun.
Thanks!
http://www.sparkfun.com/WorkshopFeedback
Feedback?

84. www.sparkfun.com
6175 Longbow Drive, Suite 200
Boulder, Colorado 80301