arduino class notes

For the last four weeks I’ve been teaching an Intro to Arduino class at Sunlight. It’s been fun! I’m hopeful that the participants have gotten a new hobby out of it. Being able to translate your software skills into the physical world isn’t exactly sorcery, but it’s the next best thing.

The notes are available at the links below. And the class Github repository can be found here.

• Lesson 1 – Digital Output
• Lesson 2 – Digital Input
• Lesson 3 – Serial Communication
• Lesson 4 – Analog Input/Output
• Lesson 5 – What To Buy For Your New Hobby

It’s safe to say that this curriculum isn’t too different from other Arduino classes. The extent to which it relies on the sample code that ships with the Arduino IDE is proof enough of that. But in my experience the hardest-won pieces of knowledge in any technical hobby are the bits of folk knowledge that don’t rise to the level of Timeless Principle. What vendors have the best deals? What’s the name of that kind of connector? Which stuff do I really need to know, and which stuff is just there because the instructor thinks it’s good for me?

I tried to focus on these questions in the notes attached to these slides. Hopefully you’ll find them useful! Based on student response, I think that lesson 3 needs some touch-up work for non-Python users, but otherwise they’re probably in pretty okay shape.