EDUCATOR PORTAL

PROJECT MATERIALS

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PROJECT RESOURCES

Concepts

In this project, students will learn about the positive and negative states of the GPIO pins and how to use them to design the architecture of a circuit. For the first time, students will need to choose which GPIO they use instead of the tutorial instructing them to which pins they should use.

Students can use the ELECTRONICS tab to view which pins are receiving electrical current. The pins turn yellow on the panel picture when they receive current. The grey pins on the panel picture are positive, the black pins are negative or ground. The long side of the LED can be connected to any grey pin, the short side can be connected to any black pin. Students should not use pins colored red or blue on the panel picture.

Troubleshooting Tips

• Most students will make mistakes wiring to correct positive or negative pins as we are not instructing them specifically what pins to use. Make sure they are using the ELECTRONICS tab when they run their code to see which pin number is turning yellow, meaning there is current flowing through it. Their code should be turning that pin On and Off, and it should also be the pin that is connected to the long end of the LED.

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PROJECT STEPS

Step 1 Get your stuff!

You are going to design your own light show with 3 LEDs and a button.

Step 2 Code the LED

Add a Turn Pin On block and a Turn Pin Off block.

Step 3 Add Repeat Forever

Wrap those pin blocks in a Repeat Forever block.

Step 4 The electronics panel

Press Start. Open the ELECTRONICS panel. Which pin is flashing?

Step 5 Wire the positive

Wire the pin on your Raspberry Pi that is flashing in the Electronics panel to the long end of an LED.

Step 6 Wire the negative

Now wire a ground pin (black) on your Raspberry Pi to the short end of an LED.

Step 7 Add more LED's

Repeat steps 2, 5, and 6 with 2 more LEDs.

Step 8 Check the code

Add blocks for the new LEDs and change the pin numbers. Press Start and watch them blink.

Step 9 Add a button

Add a button to your breadboard and connect one side to a ground pin (black) and the other side to a GPIO pin (grey).

Step 10 Code that button

Remove the Repeat Forever block and add a pin event block. Set the pin to the button wire.

Step 11 Debug

Watch the Electronics panel when you run your code. Does pressing the button flash the correct pin?

Completed!