Arduino All-in-One Getting Started Guide

Step 5 Where to Go from Here

Congratulations! You've made it to the end of my tutorial.

I'll leave you with a couple of hints plus some ideas of what you can do using this circuit as a basis.

My biggest hint is the use of the Arduino software kit's serial monitor. Learn to love it. When the Arduino is running, use the serial monitor to see any information the board is sending to your computer. The command

Serial.begin(9600);

will tell the Arduino to send data to the computer. What data? Anything you want. Just use:

Serial.print("My variable is now: ");
Serial.println(myVariableName);

Notice that those lines are bit different. The first doesn't add a newline on the end while the second does.

Use Serial.print functions LIBERALLY when debugging code. You can delete them once everything is working correctly.

Also, note that the great thing about the Arduino is that you don't have to keep it hooked to your computer once you've uploaded your sketch. However, the board will need power. A 9V DC adapter with a positive tip is what you'll need (I keep an assortment on hand plus a couple of adjustable power supplies). If you don't have a suitable one, Adafruit Industries has them and includes one in their Arduino starter kit.

So now what? You know how to wire output and input to your Arduino and have a working copy of my tutorial project. Here's a couple of ideas for you to try:

1) Add more LED's. Instead of looping from the last LED to the first, just reverse direction. The back and forth should make a decent Cylon effect.

2) Try adding a second button on another input to slow down the rate of blinking. Or maybe create entirely different patterns using your second switch (the first one is speed, the second is mode).

In any case, have fun! The Arduino is a great piece of hardware with virtually unlimited applications. A little practice and a bit of imagination and the sky's the limit!