Week 2- Adventures in Making - Potentiometer

What the project is supposed to do.

This week's project was a demonstration of how to vary the voltage using a potentiometer in the circuit.  A potentiometer can be used to vary voltage using an analog resistance, rather than the steady on or off state that is supplied from a digital signal.  A digital signal has either an on or off state (0 or 1) as in a light switch.  Using a potentiometer to vary the voltage from the analog side of the board, you can regulate the voltage.

 The code I used  for this project.

int sensorPin = 0;    // The potentiometer is connected to
                                 // analog pin 0 

int ledPin = 13;      // The LED is connected to digital pin 13
 

void setup()         // this function runs once when the sketch starts up

{
   pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() // this function runs repeatedly after setup() finishes

{
   int sensorValue;
   sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);   
   digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);         // Turn the LED on
  delay(sensorValue);                     // Pause for sensorValue
                                                         // milliseconds 
  digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);       // Turn the LED off
  delay(sensorValue);                 // Pause for sensorValue
                                                     // milliseconds 
 }
 

A picture of my circuit including Arduino and Breadboard for this project
 

 

An  Visio drawing of my electronic diagram of my week 2 project
 

A couple of YouTube Video of my project

 

Circuit and Code Play

 

See what happens if you use two digital pins rather that one digital and one analog pin:

 

I try to switch the analog pin over to digital, however the light would not function.  I would think that a code change would be necessary in order for this to work.  I will explore this a t a later time.

 

Extension Challenge

 

Can you control 2 lights with the same brightness or same blink rate

 

Yes, plugged a red LED into slot (g) 19 and 20 next to the amber LED and both blinked at the same rate.

 

 

 



Thoughts and Final Reflections:
 
I found this project to fun and informative.  The most challenging part of this project I encountered was having to go out and search the internet for the USK guide to get the proper code for this project.  The code that I originally used, that I thought was the code for the project, did not work.  Although I had a blinking light, the potentiometer was not working.  I knew that there should have been some type of reaction when I turned the potentiometer, but there was no reaction.  The light kept blinking at a steady rate.  
 
What I learned from this project:  I really never understood what component of the electronic circuitry controlled things like volume and attenuation (If that's a word).  I now have a much better understanding of the hardware and software that controls the electronic circuitry. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Video explaining the project and how it works.