The Complete Beginners Guide to The Arduino - 2020

In this lesson, we will take a short tour of the Arduino board. Learning about the board, what each pin and component does is important for beginner Arduino developers. By understanding what the board specifications are, you will save yourself a lot of frustration and perhaps avoid damaging your board at a later date.

This quiz will test your knowledge of the Arduino board and help you to learn the various pieces of hardware and their specifications.

Bits and bytes have been mentioned in a previous lecture. Bits make up the digits in a binary number. Understanding the basics of the binary number system will help you understand how numbers are stored within the Arduino chip. In this video you will be given a brief introduction to the binary number system, how to convert from binary to decimal and from decimal to binary.

This lecture will explain the different types of data you can store and use in your Arduino code and how much space each one takes up in memory. This is an essential concept and if you don't full understand the different data types that you can use in the C language you will suffer all kinds of errors and bugs that you will find hard to fix.

This quiz will test what you have learnt in the programming fundamentals section. If your score is less than 90% then go back over this section and retake the quiz once you are confident to do so. Aim for 100% !

Here we go over the difference between variables and constants, how to declare variables and their data types and how to store data in a variable correctly.

Most programs will require you to manipulate data in some way and this lecture explains the different types of mathematical operators you can use to calculate your desired results.

By comparing two or more pieces of data you can then make decisions based on the result of that comparison. This lecture explains how.

One thing computers and microcontrollers are good at is doing the same task over and over many times. The Arduino is capable of repeating a task many times. This lecture explains iteration and the various methods available to you.

Once your code starts getting larger than a page long you will want to split out your code into functions to make it easier to control, easier to read and debug. This lecture explains what functions are and how to use them in your code.

Sometimes you may want to store 10ss, 100s or even thousands of pieces of information. An array will enable you to do this and to index each piece of information easily. Here the concept of arrays and how to use them is explained in detail.

Variables, or pieces of data, can be visible to either your entire program or just to individual functions. This lecture explains the concept of variable scope, why it is important and how to use it effectively.

Finally the basic layout of a minimal Arduino is explained and the differences between the Setup and the Loop functions.

In this lecture, we are going to look at the relationship between current, voltage and resistance and learn how to apply Ohms Law to work out one of these values if we know the other two.

Resistors are too small to write their values along the side and so use a colour code system instead. This lecture will teach you how to read the resistor colour codes.

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