The Easiest Arduino Project Ever!

Welcome to my first instrucatble I hope you like it and feel free to leave any constructive criticism. Hope I can make more instrucatbles in the furture.

Step 1: Arduino

Arduino is an open-source prototyping platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. Arduino boards are able to read inputs - light on a sensor, a finger on a button, or a Twitter message - and turn it into an output - activating a motor, turning on an LED, publishing something online.

I have been on Instructables for quite some time now, browsing through the various projects that I knew I was never capable of making. Whenever I browsed through the Arduino category people were always making cool stuff bringing together hardware ans software and making it really cool. After so many years I have finally gotten my hands on a Arduino board and I am ready to begin my journey through the vast expanse of the Arduino community

Now for starters I have no previous programming knowledge or experience. I have only recently began learning the Arduino language which is based off C/C++. After finishing some cool little projects I wanted to share my experience and show others how to make a the most basic arduino program.

Step 2: Materials

Now to begin we need to get ourselves some materials.

1: Arduino

http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Board-Module-ATmega3...

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/UNO-R3-CH340G-ATmeg...

2: Led diode

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/500Pcs-lot-3MM-LED-...

http://www.amazon.com/microtivity-IL188-Assorted-R...

3:Power Source

Comes with the Arduino

4: Arduino IDE

https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

1st. We obviously need an Arduino board to carry out our little program.

2nd. Our Led to send signals to make it work.

3rd. Any power source that can power the Arduino and a way to send over our code to the Arduino, so basically a USB cable

4th. The environment we will be programming in which is the Arduino IDE. Download it from here

Step 3: Programing

After you install the Arduino IDE you will be shown a starter screen with two sections the setup section and the loop.

We will setup which pins we use in the setup and write the code we want to run in the loop

Lets setup digital pin 13 because its the closest to the ground pin.

Now in our loop we need to turn on the led so we write digitalWrite(13,HIGH).

We need to wait a second so we can see the led light up so we write delay(1000)

Lets turn the led off so then we write digitalWrite(13,LOW).

We have to wait a second again so we can see the effect delay(1000).

Since this code is in the loop section it will repeat forever or until we take out the power cable.

This code will make the led have a blink effect by turning it off and on continually.

I have included the code in a downloadable file

Step 4: Uploading It

At the top left hand corner you will see an arrow button. This button is the upload button. It will send the code to your Arduino. When you click it you will be asked to save it. After the file has been saved it will begin uploading your code.

Step 5: Testing It

After the upload is complete you need to plug in the led into digital pin 13 and the ground pin. Press the reset button to make the code start and voila you have just created your first Arduino program. There is a video of my arduino running the code

Step 6: Future Thoughts

This is a very basic code and can be the starting block to others. With the knowledge gained from this I have wrote a code that blinks SOS in morse code.

I have include the file for this as well.

Step 7: Thank You

Thanks for reading this instructable and hope you picked up some skills you could use.