Book Image

Learning C for Arduino

By : Syed Omar Faruk Towaha
Book Image

Learning C for Arduino

By: Syed Omar Faruk Towaha

Overview of this book

This book will start with the fundamentals of C programming and programming topics, such data types, functions, decision making, program loops, pointers, and structures, with the help of an Arduino board. Then you will get acquainted with Arduino interactions with sensors, LEDs, and autonomous systems and setting up the Arduino environment. Moving on you will also learn how to work on the digital and analog I/O, establish serial communications with autonomous systems, and integrate with electronic devices. By the end of the book, you will be able to make basic projects such as LED cube and smart weather system that leverages C.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Learning C for Arduino
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

The Firmata library


The Firmata library is an advanced level library to communicate with the Arduino microcontroller from the Arduino IDE on a computer. Simply, Firmata is a genetic protocol that enables any computer to take full control over a microcontroller (for example, Arduino). By using this library, we can decide what pins will be inputs and what pins will be the outputs. Basically we can control the Arduino pins to read the pins or set the pins to read any sensor such as buttons, potentiometers, light sensors, or PIR (Passive Infrared Sensor) sensors and we can control parts such as LEDs, relays, speakers, or Servo motors. In Firmata we do not need to write any code. We will see how we can import a simple Firmata code and run it to take control of the pins and onboard LEDs of the Arduino.

After opening the Arduino IDE, you need to go to File | Examples | Firmata. From there we can use the example code to take control over the Arduino and the sensors: