This week we had two builds to do and then a challenge of combining two or more builds and making the code work. The first build was the Driving an RGB LED and the second build was Driving Multiple LEDs. Then for the challenge, I decided I wanted to combine these two challenges and see if I could get them both to work.
First, Driving an RGB LED was pretty easy to set up and the code made sense for the most part. The first part of the code has the RGB go through the 8 colors that can be created with it and a delay(1000) which is 1000 milliseconds. Then the code has the RGB step through the colors the RGB can make by using the variable “x” and having “x” count from 0 to 767. It uses if/else statements to figure out what color is to be being displayed at that time. Below is the code I used, a picture of the circuit, and diagrams of the circuit (one I drew and one a fritz).
Once I got
everything set up and the code all ready, I hit upload and the RGB started
going through the eight colors, except green was missing. I didn’t realize green wasn’t showing up
until the second loop through when it just went off for a time and then
continued. I looked at the board to
realize that the resistor that was supposed to be from d5 to f5 was actually in
d5 to f6, so I fixed it and the next cycle I got green. Now that everything was working, I went to
clean up the code and after I got it all cleaned up, I hit verify and got an
error message saying that showRGB wasn’t defined. I looked at it and realized I took the curly
bracket out on accident. I put it back
in and it verified again and didn’t get an error. Wahoo.
Second, Driving Multiple LEDs again was easy to set up the code made sense, though I am not sure I could have figured out how to write the code to make it do all the different things it could. This program had the circuit turning on LEDs oneAfterAnother, oneOnATATime, pingPong, marquee, and randomLED. I learned that you can put // in front parts of the functions that are in the void setup() and that makes it become like a comment that the Arduino doesn’t recognize so it doesn’t do anything for it. This allows you to have different functions that you can run one at a time using the same circuit setup and not have to have a different set of code for each one. Below is the code I used, a picture of the circuit, and the diagrams of the circuit (one I drew and one a fritz).
The code
above is the cleaned-up code. I started
with the messy and cleaned it up. I verified the cleaned-up code and got no
errors. I then went through and checked
to make sure each loop worked. They all
still worked. Below is a video with all
the different loops working.
Last, I
moved on to the challenge for the week where I was to put 2 or 3 circuit codes
into one program and make the circuit work. I was able to do this by using the
two codes and circuits from this week. I
set up by board with the multiple LEDs and then added the RGB, this was the
easy part. Now I needed to combine the
two codes to make both work together.
The first time I tried to combine the two codes I started with the
Multiple LEDs code and then went in and added the RGB code. When I hit verify, I got an error saying
missing terminating apostrophe instead of a semicolon, so I added the semicolon
instead of the apostrophe (typing too fast error) and verified again. I still got an error saying expected ‘or’,
“before ‘void’” this took me a minute to figure out because it wasn’t as clear
as the other code. So, I went back to
the printed code I had and realized that I forgot a semicolon after 11 above
the line, so I fixed that and tried again.
Third time trying and it works, I got no errors, thank goodness. I do like that it highlights the area where
the error is even if I don’t understand what the error is telling me, it helped
me figure it out even if it took a minute.
I now uploaded it to the board and only the multiple LEDs light up and
nothing happened to the RGB. I watched
some videos about combining codes to see if I could figure it out. After about three hours I decided it was time
to quit for the night and try again tomorrow afternoon. So, I started again the next day by making
sure each code still worked individually and they both did. This helped me know that they are correct and
that it was the way I was combining them that was creating the problems. This time I started with the RGB code and
added the multiple LED code to it. I verified it and got a couple of error
codes about ‘{‘ not being a token. So, I
removed them and verified again and it came back all good (no errors). I then
uploaded it to the board and the RGB went through its loop and then the
multiple LEDs went through its oneAfterAnotherLoop. I first thought the RGB wasn’t doing anything
but after waiting longer I realized it was still going through the colors just
slowly and when it got back to red, it turned off as did the multiple LEDs and
the whole thing started over again.
Below is a picture of my setup, the diagram of my circuit for the
challenge, the code used, and a video of all it working.
Pictures of the code used for challenge.
Here is a video of the challenge build.
Overall,
this week the two builds we were given to do were easy to setup up the circuits
and the codes seemed to make sense but again, I am not sure I would have been
able to come up with them. The challenge
part of this week also was easy for the circuit setup but the coding part was
frustrating and I am still not sure why I worked the way I did it the second
time but not the way I did it the first time.
The RGB can be seen in video game consoles because they need to show
different colors all in the same area at once.
I also think that it is used in controllers for video games that light
up different colors in one spot as the player uses it. The Multiple LEDs circuit can be seen on a
flashing marquee sign that is trying to get peoples attention but it is also
used in my husbands’ keyboard for his computer as it is backlit and changes
colors slowly or fast depending on what he wants it to do (normally on slow
because fast gives him a headache). He
can also make it light in different patterns and ways just like I was able to
get the multiple LED circuit to do. I am
hoping that I have learned enough that I will be able to complete my own build
setup and code to make that build work that we supposedly have coming up next
week. Now to take a day brain break
before next week's Adventures in Making and class work.
