Book Image

Arduino for Kids

By : Rishi Gaurav Bhatnagar, Vijay Varada
Book Image

Arduino for Kids

By: Rishi Gaurav Bhatnagar, Vijay Varada

Overview of this book

The mission of this book is to integrate technology with the tools that children already use for crafts so that they feel that the technology is an extension of their playtime. We use coding, sensors, and micro-controllers integrated with art and craft supplies, origami, and Playdough. There are 10 fun-filled chapters that talk to children directly, and give clear instructions for non-technical parents too. We use Arduino as the controller of choice due to its easy availability and large community. By the end of the book, children will comfortably be able to set up their Arduino, read and understand code, manipulate code, and ultimately write their own code for projects. They will also be able to use basic sensors and know how components connect to each other. All the learning takes place with lots of colorful pictures and the circuits are neatly presented using wiring.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Arduino for Kids
Credits
Foreword
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Exploring common sensors


There are so many sensors that we come across every day.

Here is a list of very widely used sensors:

  1. Distance sensor (proximity sensor)

  2. Temperature sensor

  3. Humidity sensor

The very cool thing about sensors in the aforementioned list is that these sensors are used in many things around us, be it smart TVs, laptops, smart watches, home automation systems, or wearable devices. We will learn about these sensors now.

Distance sensor

A distance sensor usually measures the distance between itself and an obstacle using the concept of light waves. A light wave originates from the sensor (from the transmitter of a sensor), bounces back from the obstacle, and is received by the receiver of the sensor. Think of this as you walking in an empty room and shouting something. The voice echoes. That is exactly how the light waves interact and bounce back too, they echo from the object.

In the case of a distance sensor, the first block is just a transmitter-receiver. The second block is what...