Course Overview

Getting started with electronics has traditionally been hard requiring investment in costly and difficult to procure electronics learning kits. The Arduino movement however changed all of that with the introduction of the Arduino UNO. The Arduino UNO is one of the best boards to get started with learning electronics, coding, etc. In many different way the Arduino movement and has democratized the learning of electronics all over the world. In this development track you will explore the fundamentals of electronics and the Arduino using Tinkercad. Tinkercad is an easy, browser-based 3D design and modeling tool which allows users to imagine anything and then design it in minutes. You can learn more about Tinkercad and Arduino at the Tinkercad website.

Tinkercad allows you to –

1. Prototype your electronic designs completely within the browser, before building them in real life.
2. Program Arduinos directly in the editor using visual code blocks or text.
3. Learn electronics by tinkering with ready-made examples.

This development track provides access to various tutorials that will help you explore the fundamentals of electronics while building on your essential coding skills. This development track is based on the Arduino UNO and offers a perfect introduction to the world of electronics and programming through an affordable and easy to use hardware, software platform. You will learn how to connect up different electronic bits (Sensors, LEDs, switches, LCD, servo, etc.), create circuits using the Arduino, learn to put together basic circuits using the Tinkercad Arduino block based programming interface.

As you progress through the different tutorials you will explore the different capabilities of the Arduino, including the intricacies of integrating the Arduino with the different electronic bits i.e. sensors, LED’s, switches, servos, etc.

As part of this development track you will cover the following concepts –

1. Learning to write Arduino sketches and blink LED’s using Tinkercad
2. Work with LED’s
3. Understand how potentiometers, relays, switches, rotary encorders, LCD Displays, etc. work
4. Learn to use a bunch of sensors
5. Work with DC motors and servos
6. Create your own custom circuits and write code to interact with the electronics
7. Implement different project ideas through a combination of Arduino based code and electronics

We recommend that you take the following courses to build your programming fundamentals –

1. Introduction to coding concepts with Scratch I
2. Introduction to coding concepts with Scratch II
3. Exploring Coding Concepts Using the BBC micro:bit I
4. Exploring Coding Concepts Using the BBC micro:bit II
5. Exploring Coding Concepts Using the BBC micro:bit III
6. Design Interactive Games Using the BBC micro:bit

Prerequisites

This development track requires an investment in the following hardware –

1. You will need to download and install the Arduino development IDE. The approach to installation, configuration, setup of the Arduino IDE is covered in our tutorials.
2. You will need to purchase the Arduino UNO which will be used extensively to create each of the circuits covered in this development track.

About the Arduino UNO

The Arduino UNO is the most used and documented board of the whole Arduino family and very easy to setup, play with. The Arduino UNO is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega328 . The Arduino UNO has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz ceramic resonator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button.

Arduino is an open-source, prototyping platform and its simplicity makes it ideal for hobbyists to use as well as professionals. The Arduino UNO contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started. The Arduino UNO differs from all preceding boards in that it does not use the FTDI USB-to-serial driver chip. Instead, it features the Atmega8U2 microcontroller chip programmed as a USB-to-serial converter. “Uno” means one in Italian and is named to mark the upcoming release of Arduino 1.0. The Arduino Uno and version 1.0 will be the reference versions of Arduno, moving forward. The Uno is the latest in a series of USB Arduino boards, and the reference model for the Arduino platform.

You can read more about the Arduino here – www.arduino.cc.