Coding and Sensors

“Coding is the new literacy” according to the Queensland Dept. of Education and Training. This workshop is:

A beginners’ introduction to coding using the Arduino platform, and
An introduction to sensors and electronics, with a particular focus on building electronic systems to support scientific experiments.

Learning outcomes

To be able to write simple Arduino programs.
To be able to modify existing Arduino programs to suit a given situation.
To be able to use Arduinos to create sensor systems and data loggers.

Prerequisites

It is assumed that you understand electric circuit theory to the level of high school physics, e.g. what is voltage, what is current, Ohm’s law.
If you have never used an electronics breadboard, it may be helpful to read Sparkfun’s tutorial.

Reference materials

The Arduino Notebook is a good reference for the programming concepts used here.
The Arduino tutorials website has links to many useful resources.

List of lessons

#1 Parts and how to buy them — Equipment used here
#2 Warmup — A warm welcome to the Arduino world
#3 Driving an external LED — Bring out the breadboard
#4 Serial output — Getting your Arduino to write to you
#5 Sensing the light — Introducing analog input
#6 Decision making — Build a night light
#7 Servo motors — Giving your Arduino movement
#8 Repetition: while loops — Repeating code without repeating yourself
#9 Repetition: for loops — An easy way to count
#10 Soil moisture sensing — Plant science meets electronics
#11 Digital temperature sensors — Make your buildings smart
#12 Real time clocks — Data loggers that keep time
#13 Data logging — Saving measurements for later analysis
#14 Hysteresis — Non-ideal sensor properties

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For comments or corrections, please contact [email protected].