Tutorial 2 - Let’s start playing…!!!

As it is stated in previous post that we aren’t going to start will all those repeating basic programs but still here are some most important commands that will be used throughout our tutorial series.

Serial.println(value);

Prints the value to the Serial Monitor on your computer

pinMode(pin, mode);

Configures a digital pin to read (input) or write (output) a digital value

digitalRead(pin);

Reads a digital value (HIGH or LOW) on a pin set for input

digitalWrite(pin, value);

Writes the digital value (HIGH or LOW) to a pin set for output

Now all of you know how to turn on a led using arduino. But if I want to use decimal number for our program then. We will use float number, here suppose we want to add some decimal numbers and want to print them.

float value = 1.1;

void setup()

{

Serial.begin(9600); //open the serial port to send data back to the computer at  9600 bits per //second

}

void loop()

{

value = value + 0.1;  // increase value by 0.1 each time through the loop

Serial.println("The value is ");

Serial.println(value);

delay (1000);

}

We will use the above code for our purpose. Floating point approximates numbers because it only uses 32 bits to hold all values within a huge range. Eight bits are used for the decimal multiplier (the exponent), and that leaves 24 bits for the sign and value—only enough for seven significant decimal digits. But remember that although float and double are exactly the same on Arduino, doubles do have a higher precision on many other platforms. If you are importing code that uses float and double from another platform, check that there is sufficient precision for your application.

That’s it for this week. Next time we will look for some arrays, strings and lots more.