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On Saturday 18th September, Andrea Wilkinson, Katrien Dreessen and myself took part in a workshop on Arduino. Arduino is an open source microcontroller that can be programmed by computer relatively easy. It can be used to control robots, to make automatic irrigation systems, to control rotating tripods for a camera or an electric guitar and so on. Arduino is user-friendly and designed for those who don’t have a background in programming and electronics. For about three hours, we experimented with LEDs, wires, transistors, solderless breadboards and other interesting materials. The workshop was organized by the people of timelab (Ghent) and took place at the Cultuurcentrum Genk.

Introducing Arduino
During the introduction, the people of timelab made us install Arduino and told us all about Arduino and about how it works. They also made clear that Arduino has many possibilities and advantages compared to other microcontroller platforms. For example, one of the advantages of Arduino is that – although there are many other microcontrollers and microcontroller platforms available – it simplifies the process of working with microcontrollers. Its programming environment is simple, clear and user-friendly (especially for beginners). Furthermore, Arduino is open source and its software is availabe for extension by programmers from all over the world. Also, the hardware needed for Arduino is relatively cheap compared to other microcontroller platforms. After the introduction we were given the hardware and got to experiment ourselves with Arduino (while receiving help and feedback from the people of timelab, of course). Here are some things that we learned this morning:

The software
The Arduino development environment contains a text editor for writing code and connects to the Arduino hardware for uploading programs and communicating with them. Writing software in the Arduino text editor takes place by using so-called sketches. You can see a picture of such a sketch on the picture below. The toolbar buttons in the text editor allow the user to verify and upload programs, create, open, and save sketches, and open the serial monitor:
- Verify/Compile: 
Checks your code for errors.
- Stop: Stops the serial monitor, or un-highlight other buttons.
- New: 
Creates a new sketch.
- Open: 
Presents a menu of all the sketches in your sketchbook. Clicking one will open it within the current window.
- Save: 
Saves your sketch.
- Upload to I/O Board: 
Compiles your code and uploads it to the Arduino I/O board.
- Serial Monitor: 
Opens the serial monitor.
Additional commands are found within the five menus: File, Edit, Sketch, Tools, Help.

The picture shows that a sketch consists out of three parts. At the top, the variables need to be declared: “int ledPin = 8” means that a LED is connected to digital pin 8 on the board. The initializing-part takes place below the heading “void setup”: for example, “pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT)” means that the digital pin is initialized as an output. The text written below “void loop” involves the running of the software. For example, “delay(100)” means that the software needs to wait one hundred milliseconds before it starts with the next commend. Arduino is case-sensitive, which means that capital letters can make a difference in running the software. Also, every line needs to end with “;” for the software to run properly.

The Hardware
When you have written a sketch, you can upload it to the hardware by simply connecting the Arduino board to your computer. There are many versions of the Arduino board, but today we used an Arduino Duemilanove or Nano which uses the Atmel ATmega328. When you upload a sketch, you’re using the Arduino “bootloader”, which allows you to upload your sketch without using additional hardware. The “bootloader” is a small program that has been loaded onto the microcontroller on your board.

By using a solderless breadboard, we experimented with wires, LEDs, knobs and switches (see the picture below). We made our LEDs flash, build a dimmer knob, used light sensors to control a LED and played a tune using speakers. But of course, the possibilities of Arduino are endless and you can see some of the stuff people build by using Arduino here: http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Projects/ArduinoUsers/.

All and all, the workshop given by the people of timelab offered us the possibility to get an introduction into Arduino and get started ourselves.

More information?
If you want more information on timelab and the (Arduino-)workshops that they offer, check: http://www.timelab.org/. If you want to know more about Arduino and get started yourself, you should definitely check http://www.arduino.cc/. This website also offers beginners a very helpful style guide that helps with writing examples (see: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/HomePage).

1 Comment

1. Liesbeth Huybrechts:
   

   Go ladies!
   thanx for the nice documentation. Would be great if you would pass on your newly acquired skills in a Social Spaces or Puntkom workshop!
   best
   Liesbeth

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