Starting my learning of robotics and mechatronics with Arduino’s meant that I have been able to construct some very basic physical systems, and start learning the programming skills for a new language. I learnt the basics about the parts of the Arduino board, including what different pins are used for, such as the ground, the reset, and the regular connection pins.
The first thing that I made over the last week with an Arduino was a simple vibration detector. The vibration detector used very basic electronics – an LED, a tilt sensor, and various wires. I learnt how each component works, and how to program them to work together:
I also made a servo motor which looped rotation over 180º:
I also had to start learning how to code in C++ in order to use the Arduino’s. There are some challenges to this, having come from coding almost strictly in python for two years. The main differences in the syntax is having to add a semicolon after every statement. The other main difference is having to open a “{}” every time I create a function or a logical statement/loop.