Arduino Basics - Software, Code Basics

Arduino Basics - Software, Code Basics

Arduino is an open source family of electronic microprocessor boards that we can easily program to understand and interact with the environment.

Over the years, Arduino has become the standard for building electronics projects. Arduino has been sent into space to run micro satellites, it has been sent to the bottom of the ocean to control small robotic submersibles, and now, Arduino has arrived for you.

To learn the basics of electronics refer this 4 Book - 

1. Electronic circuits handbook for design and applications
2. Electronics – the Basics
3. Foundations of analog and digital electronic circuits
4. The Art of Electronics

Downloading the Arduino software.

The first thing we need is the Arduino Integrated Development Environment (IDE). One of the best parts about Arduino is that the software in which we need to program the boards is free and open source. The Arduino IDE is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

DownloadHere

Now I assume that you have installed Arduino, Lets see whats inside.

Here is a screenshot of Arduino IDE Software on my Laptop.

First lets discuss the Tool Bar. In the Tool Bar, we can find the most used buttons:

Button	Description
	The Verify button compiles the code and checks it for errors.
	The Upload button compiles the code and, if there is no error in the code, uploads it to the Arduino board.
	The New button starts a new program. In the Arduino world, programs are called sketches.
	The Open button simply allows us to open a saved sketch.
	The Save button saves the current sketch.
	This button opens the Serial Monitor window that allows us to communicate with the Arduino board. It is extremely helpful when we debug a program.

In the Sketch tab, we can see all the opened Arduino Sketches. This comes handy when we want to work on multiple programs at the same time.

The Code Space area is where all the magic happens. That's where we write the code that powers satellites and cat food dispensers. It's a code editor with automatic syntax highlighting and auto arranging.

The Status Display area indicates all the bad stuff. Whenever there are errors in the code, they will be displayed there. It also displays errors in the connection with the board. The only good thing it can display is that the code has been successfully uploaded to the Arduino board.

Additional functionality can be found in the main menu bar. Here, we have the classic File menu where we have Save, Open, Close, and also some examples. In the following recipes, more will be discussed about the menu bar components. A nice trick worth sharing is in the Tools menu—the Auto Format tool will format the code to look professional and clean.

Uploading Code to Arduino

It's time to power on the Arduino board and make it do something. In this recipe, we will connect the Arduino to the computer and upload an example sketch from the Arduino IDE.

How to do it?

1. Connect the Arduino to the computer using a USB cable. If everything is properly connected, the green LED light will turn on.

2. If this is the first time the Arduino has been connected to the computer, driver installation might be required. Please follow the Connecting Arduino recipe to properly set up the Arduino board.

3. Start the Arduino IDE and, in the Menu Bar, go to File | Examples | 01. Basics and click on the Blink example. This will load the Blink sketch.

4. Make sure your Arduino board is selected in the Board menu. The menu can be found in the Menu bar in Tools | Board.

5. We need to check whether the correct serial port is selected. Under Tools | Serial Port, we can see all available serial port devices connected to the computer. On Windows, each port will be labeled as COM followed by a number. Usually, Arduino installs on COM3, but not always. A fast way to check which serial port the Arduino is connected to is to unplug the cable and see which COM port disappears in the menu. That will be our Arduino board. In the Mac, the port should be called something beginning with /dev/tty.usbmodem or /dev/tty.usbserial.

6. Click on the Upload button on the Tool Bar. If everything runs properly, the TX RX LED's on the Arduino board will begin blinking for a short time until the upload is done. After this, one LED light on the Arduino Board should slowly blink with a delay of 1sec

Learning Arduino Code Basics

Here we begin with the basics of coding for Arduino. Writing code for Arduino and other embedded platforms is a little different from writing code for a computer. But don't fear—the differences are small.

Code Basics

These are the two mandatory functions in the Arduino coding environment:

void setup()

{

//only executes one when the Arduino boots

}

void loop()

{

//code executes top to down and repeats continuously

}

Explanation :

Each Arduino sketch has two mandatory functions:

The setup() function and the loop() function. The setup() function only executes once: either when we apply 

power to the Arduino or when it resets. Usually, we use this function to configure the pins of the

Arduino, to start communication protocols, such as serial communication, or to perform actions we only

want to perform once when the Arduino boots.

The loop() function executes continuously. Code in this function is executed top-down; when it reaches the end of the function, it jumps back to the start and runs again. This happens forever until the Arduino is switched off. In here, we write the code we want to run continuously.