I’m going to be entirely candid—I found myself cursing Benjamin Franklin for the entirety of this lab. I have a basic understanding of circuits—I was in a circuit building competition in my elementary school as part of our science olympiad. I also took physics for about three years in high school. None of this prior experience seems to have come of use here.
My largest struggle here as I came to figure out was the different LED voltage requirements. Removing the resistor and swapping out the white LED for a green one proved successful in the end! I wanted to use solely my computer and the arduino as a source of power. Upon measuring the current, I got a consistent reading of 3 volts, which meant I should be successful with a green LED. I was right!
This is cool. I have harnessed a power far greater than myself.
I then decided I wanted a parallel circuit of LEDs because I remembered that from my elementary electronic days.
I added a resistor and determined that the circuit still worked, but it didn’t work with just the resistor and no positive wire (even when the resistor was on the + part and the main part of the breadboard). This confused me, and I still have no closure. A mystery.
I figured out how to put the button/switch on. My initial iteration had it so that the light, by default, was on, and only by pushing the button would it turn off.
Very peculiar.
I then moved on to the parallel circuit of switches, which properly blew my mind:
I accidentally messed this up at first and nothing worked, and I think I need to keep a better eye on the ground/positive of the LED to ensure that everything works properly. The thing about the breadboard is that it feels conceptually much more difficult than, say, a diagram that I might be used to like this:
I then tried to make some sort of alternating rave button, but I failed horribly. I think I need a different kind of button/switch, unless I fundamentally misunderstand what it is I’m doing here.