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Arduino beginner

Former Member

I'm a complete beginner when it comes to electronics and programming, so I decided to help educate myself I would buy an Arduino starter kit. This kit arrived yesterday and came with an Arduino Project book which is jam packed with information and tutorials (great for learning and inspiration!!).

 

So far I have read the first few pages of the book and followed along with the first few examples. It's a lot of fun but I'm concerned about the mathematical aspect of electronics and programming (I skipped a few chapters to see what i would be doing and saw a few daunting parts that i could not get my head around). If any one has any advice for the Mathematical side I would be glad to hear from you in the comments section (i did not do very well at maths in school image but I don't want to give up) 

  • Erny,

     

    Can you post the code or a link to it.  It's hard to figure out what you need without seeing the code you're working with.

     

    Kevin H.

  • in reply to mcb1

    Hi Mark

     

    I understand the code and I know what it is doing if I were to read it, my concern came when looking at project 2 / 3 (love -o- meter) in the arduino uno starter kit's project book where by the reply signal from the temperature sensor was converted to volts and then Celsius. I cannot understand why it was worked out like that, I tried to work it out on paper and the result didn't seem correct. Unfortunately I don't have the book in front of me otherwise I would post the section I mean.

     

    Thanks

     

    Erny

  • in reply to kjhart0133

    Erny

    Don't get too hung up on the maths. It wasn't my strong subject, but hasn't stopped me.

    There is certainly a time when you need to roll your sleeves up and get stuck in, but I sense you aren't there yet.

     

    I would suggest more 'doing', and less reading.

    There are plenty of tutorials and examples, and I have suggested to the students I took to try the following.

    • LED's and blink example
    • LED's and the BlinkWithDelay example to be able to use something other than Delay.
    • Inputs with a switch, and then two switches, making one turn on and the other off.

    Play with the values and try to understand how the sketch works.

     

    Once you get your head around how the above bits work, you may want to look into temperature, and LCD Display, and I suggest the I2C displays (4 wires) and the DS18B20 temp chips.

     

    One thing to watch out for is USE A RESISTOR in series with the LED's.

    There are examples that don't and they rely on the internals of the chip.

    Use a 220 or 330 ohm resistor .... its a lot easier when you change to something without limiting.

     

    There are some basics we ran in 'The Shed' magazine that you can download (click on the picture) with the sketches here

     

    Mark

  • in reply to Former Member

    Erny,

     

    I suspect you are getting hung up on the 'math' related to binary and hexadecimal numbers and boolean logic.  If this is so, take heart, lots of Arduino beginners have the same problem.  Most learn as they go, but as a first step you should post a couple of specific examples that you don't understand.  Once you get one or two examples cleared up, that usually leads to further understanding.  Also, once the community on this forum gets a better idea of what your questions are, they can better guide you to suitable resources.  Feel free to PM (private message) me with some questions if you want some basic help.

     

    Kevin H.

  • in reply to ntewinkel

    Hi Nico

     

    Thanks very much for the advice and the websites, I will definitely try to brush up my skills as I feel not only will it help me learn but one I build a project alone I will feel happier knowing that I built it without help(hopefully this feeling will keep me motivated to learn!).

     

    Thanks

     

    Erny