Arduino for beginners

[Sallubrious]

Got your new Arduino and don't know what to do with it, can't program ?, can't read code ?
No problem.

The video seems to hang around half way but it hasn't stopped, it's loading the Arduino IDE and it takes a while to start up. The ./ before Arduino is the linux run command.

First you'll need to get the Arduino IDE

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

You'll also need the Java runtime environment to run Ardublock you can pick the appropriate version - 32 or 64 bit after you follow the link on the page below.

http://java.com/en/download/

The video above is for seting it up under linux, if you're running windows check out this link
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/alternative-arduino-interfaces/ardublock

Or (for Windows)you can just download the Arduino IDE that already has Ardublock built into it.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Makeblock-official/ardublock/master/installer/Ardublock-full-installation-package.exe

This vid explains things a bit better.

If you can blink an LED you can switch a relay to operate any 240v device with an add on relay shield.

My 6 year old son is coding like a champ after playing around with these tools, anyone can do it these days.

Edited December 19, 2015 by Sally

[Sallubrious]

After you get the hang of Ardublock check this vid and you'll be well on your way to becoming proficient at visual coding.

 

[2XB]

Can u clarify if your 6 year old is coding like a champ or visual coding like a champ? Very very impreased if he's coding oop classes etc!

[Sallubrious]

No he's just doing it visually Benno, building blocks with Ardublock and sending the generated code to the Arduino to run. The code is just a minor detail for him.

He's running motors and flashing LED's and simple stuff like that. But it's enough for him to get up and running.

A few more interesting things to consider

 

 

And if you want you could build something similar to blynk yourself with the MIT appinventor.

http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/front.html

To do something like that requires a wifi shield, bluetooth shield or ethernet sheild and they have a few quirks to get them going, it's a bit beyond the beginner level. I might write some tutorials for that when I get the motivation .

Edited December 19, 2015 by Sally

[Sallubrious]

There's a few other resources for visually building Arduino programs

https://scratch.mit.edu/scratch2download/

This one can really simplify the wifi side of things for the uninitiated. It's designed for kids to build robots.

http://www.mblock.cc/

[2XB]

Very cool your son has his head around it :-)

[Sallubrious]

I was a bit crafty when I introduced him to visual coding.

He's obsessed with minecraft, so I got him onto code.org where they use a visual block builder to move a minecraft character around the screen. They also have star wars and Elsa and Anna to get the girls interested. He sussed that in a few minutes, so Ardublock was an easy progression.

https://code.org/learn

Edited December 19, 2015 by Sally

[Sallubrious]

Once you start getting a bit more advanced and need to start handling packets for communications, things start to get a bit tricky with the Arduino.

If you are running Windows, Visiuno can do a lot of the legwork for you. It's also invaluable for prototyping.

It causes memory errors and crashes when it's running through wine, but it should work OK on Vitualbox or VMWare.

 

 

https://www.visuino.com/download

Edited December 19, 2015 by Sally

[Sallubrious]

If anyone has any tips or tricks feel free to chime in.

Most of my experience with micro controllers was with the old Z80 chip that had to be programmed in hex, or with pic processors which were not very user friendly. So I'm playing catch up here myself.

My coding experience comes from the pac man/dig dug/ frogger/ galaxian era where everyone reverse engineered other peoples code and it seemed to culminate in the development of the sega master system (which was all built on hacked reverse engineered code).

So if you have any useful code, advice or corrections get it up so we can all benefit from it.

Edited December 19, 2015 by Sally

[Sallubrious]

OK just for the sake of talking to myself.

I got my nodeMCU out for the first time today, it was my Christmas gift to myself.

After playing around with it for a while I was able to set it up as a Wi-Fi access point and play around a bit and serve a few simple web pages (I got some nefarious ideas there too). Then I connected it to my router and set a web page up to switch an LED remotely with a simple browser interface.

It's only working on the LAN side of my router at the moment but with the appropriate port forwarding it will be accessible from anywhere in the world.

The Arduino still has it's place but the nodeMCU/esp8266 shits all over it.

Edited December 25, 2015 by Sally

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

Fuck your making me jealous Sally... I CANT GET MY HEAD AROUND THIS!!

[Alice]

OK just for the sake of talking to myself.

Keep it coming mate, this is very interesting and I can't wait to try some of this out when I'm back at work. I haven't chimed into the thread as I know very little about all this electronics stuff. But very keen to get into it as I'm a chemist in a research group of mainly physicists and engineers and I'm pretty much the only one that can't do this stuff as I had perceived the learning curve to be too steep, but this thread is making me rethink that and give it a go. My colleagues make all kinds of cool shit, it's incredible what Arduinos can do.

My only experience is with this sort of thing is using a ramps shield and arduino to run a 3D printer that a student built me for a project I'm working on. It's not being used as a 3D printer as such but will do the job we need done perfectly where no other solutions exist. He put it all together for me but I'm starting to get a handle on configuring it and getting it to do what I want. Electronics is friggin cool.

So please keep posting if you want, I am eagerly listening!

[Sallubrious]

Seriously Dude, it's not that hard. If I can do it anyone can.

I only just got my first Arduino about ten days ago, all that shit I posted above was stuff I'd found in a few days. I can program in c++ but it's just not needed to get started, I've been using Ardublock to get my kids into it. Most things you could think of have already been done and the code is open source and freely available, so many times it's a copy and paste operation or you just load one of the example sketches (programs) built in to the Arduino IDE and zap it into the Arduino with a click of the mouse.

I'm only getting into to it so I can teach my kids about "the internet of things" as they say with all these new fangled web connected devices. Their primary school doesn't have anything related in the syllabus, so I want them primed for it before they get to high school.

Just get one (an Arduino copy) they're only about 5 bucks on ebay and if you have questions post them here. I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but Ace has been into it for ages and a few others have hinted at being well versed in all things Arduino.

Edited December 25, 2015 by Sally

[Sallubrious]

To be honest Alice, a RAMPS shield is much more advanced than anything I've done so far. I've only ever driven one stepper motor at a time with an Arduino and that was yesterday. Co-ordinating more than one starts to get complicated.

If you can understand the workings of RAMPS you'll be able to do most simple on - off switching (which is all I've really done) with your eyes closed. Simple switching is all that's needed for greenhouse control.

Like I said before, most of the legwork has been done before.

I'm not bio-printing like you, but that's the ultimate goal for me.

[SayN]

definitely something to investigate in 2016.

After I launch my app...

...and write my book...

sigh... looks like a busy year ahead..

[Yeti101]

Yep, I was thinking I need to look at this stuff so I'm vaguely employable after my admin job gets automated. And if I ever get an acreage, I'll need to be able to program automated greenhouse systems as well as my herd of pasture managment agbots and security drones.

[Yeti101]

It's certainly not for beginners, but apparently this was done with Arduino: https://www.fastcompany.com/3059616/these-students-built-a-glove-that-translates-sign-language-into-english 

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

Wow that's an amazing invention!!

[SayN]

Damn, I'd better get started on my book!

[Yeti101]

Again, not for beginners, but super-cool: https://blog.arduino.cc/2017/12/29/ultrasonically-levitate-particles-and-liquid/ 

 

 

[Bigred]

I copied this grow room controller http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=73941.0

[Sallubrious]

^ That wasn't a bad project in it's day, but things have moved on a lot since that was started.

 

These days you can do the same thing with Raspi 0 W that's not much bigger than a cigarette lighter has onboard wifi and runs much simpler code. You can access it from a web browser and even control it from your phone (anywhere in the world if you set your router up for it) all for about 23 bucks.

 

I've moved away from Arduino's lately, they still have their place but I don't really bother with them much anymore.