Basic electronics for Arduino Makers

An introduction to electronics to help you make the most from your Arduino or other prototyping platform.

Created by: Dr. Peter Dalmaris
Educator and Author of "Maker Education Revolution".

What Will I Learn?

• Understand the concepts of voltage, resistance and current
• Use Ohm's Law to calculate voltage, current and resistance
• Use Kirchhoff's Laws to calculate voltage and current
• Understand the meaning of and calculate energy and power
• Use resistors in various configurations, like in voltage dividers and voltage ladders
• Read the value of a resistor from its package
• Use pull-up and pull-down resistors
• Understand the use of capacitors
• Use capacitors as energy stores and filters
• Calculate the RC time constant of a capacitor
• Understand diodes
• Measure the voltage drop of a diode
• Understand how to use rectifier and zener diodes
• Protect a circuit from reverse polarity
• Understand how to use a transistor to control low and high power loads
• Calculate the currents and base resistor for a bipolar transistor
• Use the correct voltage regulator for any circuit

Requirements

• Small circuits controlled by an Arduino
• A basic understanding of electricity and electronics
• Have assorted resistors, capacitors, LEDs, diodes, transistors, voltage regulators (see section 1 for details, free to view)
• A breadboard, jumper wires and a battery (see section 1 for details, free to view)
• A multimeter (see section 1 for details, free to view)
• Basic algebra

Target audience

• Anyone with minimal experience using an Arduino
• Anyone with minimal experience using any prototyping platform
• Anyone with a need to brush up their knowledge of basic electronics