Craft to Career: Engineering With Circuits: DIY Motor and Robotics Projects
CIRCUITS 101 There are different types of circuits Two common types are series circuits and parallel circuits SERIES CIRCUIT In a series circuit the current flows from one element to the next in a series These circuits can be straightforward to set up However if one element of the circuit doesn't work the entire circuit is broken Holiday light strings are often set up this way If one bulb burns out the entire string fails 10 PARALLEL CIRCUIT In a parallel circuit all the positive components of the circuit are connected to one another and all the negative components of the circuit are connected to one another This means the current can continue to flow even if one component fails Parallel circuits can be complex to design But they are also reliable For example in a string of holiday lights that uses parallel circuits one light can burn out and the rest will continue to shine
SHORT CIRCUIT Sometimes something goes wrong and electricity doesn't follow the full path of a circuit This is called a short circuit It can happen when wires that aren't supposed to touch do creating an additional path for the electricity Short circuits can be dangerous They can overload parts of the circuit draining the battery or causing components to get very hot Short Circuit No Current BATTERY 11 AC DC Circuits are either powered by alternating current AC or direct current DC In an AC circuit the flow of electrons constantly switches directions Wall outlets in homes and buildings are a common example of AC circuits An AC circuit typically uses three wires hot neutral and ground The hot wire carries the live current to the load The neutral wire offers a way for the current to return to the outlet The ground wire directly connects the load to the neutral wire The ground wire helps prevent electric shock or fire in case of a short circuit In a DC circuit the electrical current flows along a single wire in one direction from negative to positive Batteries are common sources of power in DC circuits
RX TX pwm Arduino cofounder Massimo Banzi An important piece of Arduino hardware is the controller board called the Uno DIGITAL UNO ARDUINO 12 DOF 125 ANALOG IN
PROGRAMMING CIRCUITS Circuits in robots and many other devices are built and controlled with computer hardware and software One type of software that makes programming easier is an Integrated Development Environment IDE IDEs combine different elements of a computer program into one application build with its boards and use its software for free Because of this many Arduino friendly products are available People also create and share online tutorials and code examples Many schools around the world use Arduino Arduino is an Italian company that makes hardware for building electronic devices It also has its own IDE Anyone can use Arduino hardware to build digital devices The hardware includes a controller board power supply modules and sensors Users can then use Arduino's IDE to write code and upload it to their devices Arduino's IDE is open source so anyone can 13 Raspberry Pi is another popular brand of electronics hardware It has controller boards and other components similar to Arduino's Raspberry Pi doesn't offer its own IDE but there are several IDEs that are compatible with both Raspberry Pi and Arduino hardware These include Blocks Eclipse and Visual Studio Any of these products can help you get started building and programming electronic devices Arduino offers starter kits that provide many components for building circuits
