Arduino: A Quick-Start Guide, Second Edition

311 Pages·2015·29.06 MB·English

by  Maik Schmidt

Early praise for Arduino: A Quick-Start Guide, Second Edition
Buy this book only if you don’t mind being sucked into an amazing world of Ar-
duino hacking, programming, games, controllers, motors, tweeting, networking,
and lots of other mind-blowing things!
➤ Kevin Beam
Software engineer, National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
Maik Schmidt’s writing style is engaging and makes complex concepts accessible.
When I finished the book, I was daydreaming about future Arduino projects I
could create.
➤ Matthew Sullivan
Senior Rails/Ruby developer, Paradigmisr
A very well-written, thorough introduction to the Arduino platform. The second
edition is a nice refinement of the first, with much updated as a result of the
changes to the platform since the initial release of the book.
➤ Mike Riley
Author, Programming Your Home, Build an Awesome PC, and Developing Android
on Android
Arduino: A Quick-Start Guide,
Second Edition
Maik Schmidt
The Pragmatic Bookshelf
Dallas, Texas • Raleigh, North Carolina
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All circuit diagrams were created with Fritzing (http://fritzing.org).
The team that produced this book includes:
Susannah Davidson Pfalzer (editor)
Potomac Indexing, LLC (indexer)
Cathleen Small (copyeditor)
Dave Thomas (typesetter)
Janet Furlow (producer)
Ellie Callahan (support)
For international rights, please contact [email protected].
Copyright © 2015 The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN-13: 978-1-94122-224-9
Encoded using the finest acid-free high-entropy binary digits.
Book version: P2.0—March 2015
Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
The Parts You Need . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Part I — Getting Started with Arduino
1. Welcome to the Arduino . . . . . . . . . . 3
What You Need 4
What Exactly Is an Arduino? 4
Exploring the Arduino Board 6
Installing the Arduino IDE 10
Meeting the Arduino IDE 14
Hello, World! 16
Compiling and Uploading Programs 19
What If It Doesn’t Work? 21
Exercises 22
2. Creating Bigger Projects with the Arduino . . . . . 23
What You Need 23
Managing Projects and Sketches 24
Changing Preferences 26
Using Serial Ports 28
What If It Doesn’t Work? 35
Exercises 36
Contents • vi
Part II — Eleven Arduino Projects
3. Building Binary Dice . . . . . . . . . . . 39
What You Need 39
Working with Breadboards 40
Using an LED on a Breadboard 41
First Version of a Binary Die 45
Working with Buttons 48
Adding Your Own Button 53
Building a Dice Game 55
What If It Doesn’t Work? 59
Exercises 60
4. Building a Morse Code Generator Library . . . . . 61
What You Need 61
Learning the Basics of Morse Code 62
Building a Morse Code Generator 62
Fleshing Out the Morse Code Generator’s Interface 64
Outputting Morse Code Symbols 65
Installing and Using the Telegraph Class 67
Publishing Your Own Library 71
What If It Doesn’t Work? 73
Exercises 73
5. Sensing the World Around Us . . . . . . . . 77
What You Need 78
Measuring Distances with an Ultrasonic Sensor 78
Increasing Precision Using Floating-Point Numbers 84
Increasing Precision Using a Temperature Sensor 86
Creating Your Own Dashboard 92
What If It Doesn’t Work? 97
Exercises 98
6. Building a Motion-Sensing Game Controller . . . . . 99
What You Need 100
Wiring Up the Accelerometer 100
Bringing Your Accelerometer to Life 102
Finding and Polishing Edge Values 103
Building Your Own Game Controller 106
More Projects 109
Contents • vii
What If It Doesn’t Work? 110
Exercises 110
7. Writing a Game for the Motion-Sensing Game Controller . 111
Writing a GameController Class 112
Creating the Game 114
What If It Doesn’t Work? 124
Exercises 124
8. Generating Video Signals with an Arduino . . . . . 127
What You Need 128
How Analog Video Works 128
Building a Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) 130
Connecting the Arduino to Your TV Set 131
Using the TVout Library 133
Building a TV Thermometer 134
Working with Graphics in TVout 139
What If It Doesn’t Work? 143
Exercises 144
9. Tinkering with the Wii Nunchuk . . . . . . . 145
What You Need 145
Wiring a Wii Nunchuk 146
Talking to a Nunchuk 147
Building a Nunchuk Class 148
Using Our Nunchuk Class 152
Creating Your Own Video Game Console 153
Creating Your Own Video Game 153
What If It Doesn’t Work? 162
Exercises 162
10. Networking with Arduino . . . . . . . . . 163
What You Need 164
Using Your PC to Transfer Sensor Data to the Internet 164
Registering an Application with Twitter 167
Tweeting Messages with Processing 168
Communicating Over Networks Using an Ethernet Shield 173
Using DHCP and DNS 177
What If It Doesn’t Work? 180
Exercises 181
Contents • viii
11. Creating a Burglar Alarm with Email Notification . . . 183
What You Need 184
Emailing from the Command Line 184
Emailing Directly from an Arduino 189
Detecting Motion Using a Passive Infrared Sensor 193
Bringing It All Together 197
What If It Doesn’t Work? 200
Exercises 200
12. Creating Your Own Universal Remote Control . . . . 201
What You Need 202
Understanding Infrared Remote Controls 202
Grabbing Remote Control Codes 203
Cloning a Remote 207
Controlling Infrared Devices Remotely with Your Browser 212
Building an Infrared Proxy 216
What If It Doesn’t Work? 223
Exercises 223
13. Controlling Motors with Arduino . . . . . . . 225
What You Need 225
Introducing Motors 226
First Steps with a Servo Motor 227
Building a Blaminatr 230
What If It Doesn’t Work? 235
Exercises 235
Part III — Appendixes
A1. Electronics and Soldering Basics . . . . . . . 239
Current, Voltage, and Resistance 239
Electrical Circuits 239
Learning How to Use a Wire Cutter 243
Learning How to Solder 243
Learning How to Desolder 247
A2. Advanced Arduino Programming . . . . . . . 249
The Arduino Programming Language 249
Bit Operations 251
Contents • ix
A3. Advanced Serial Programming . . . . . . . . 253
Learning More About Serial Communication 253
Serial Communication Using Various Languages 255
A4. Controlling the Arduino with a Browser . . . . . . 267
What Are Google Chrome Apps? 267
Creating a Minimal Chrome App 269
Starting the Chrome App 270
Exploring the Chrome Serial API 271
Writing a SerialDevice Class 274
A5. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283