Unlocking the Arduino: Foundations of Programming

Roll up your sleeves and discover electrical engineering in this class! We actively work together to design, build, and code projects using the Arduino.

The teacher will model the engineering design process by setting project goals with students before building the circuit and writing the code. Students will gain experience with "Comment First" coding, identifying how to make their projects come to life. We will actively incorporate circuit elements such as LEDs, buttons, and potentiometers to see what these components can do.

Students will discover how to:
- Plan circuits using appropriate inputs and outputs
- Prototype circuits on a breadboard
- Identify critical programming variables
- Incorporate logical controls using appropriate programming syntax
- Read programming written for Arduino
- Troubleshoot their Arduino projects

Our class time is an active building environment where we work on writing code and building circuits together. To get the most out of our time together, students should bring an Arduino Starter Kit to every class and join our class from a computer with the Arduino IDE program installed. The Arduino IDE is a script-based programming interface where learners should be comfortable navigating the keyboard and typing characters such as (, ), {, }, /, and ;.

Class topics are as follows:
- Week 1: Build a circuit using a breadboard
- Week 2: Use the Arduino to make LEDs blink
- Week 3: Explore variables and loops
- Week 4: Experiment with using the Arduino to control outputs
- Week 5: Introduction to circuit inputs
- Week 6: Use buttons and dials
- Weeks 7 and 8: Student-determined class project