Having finished the seven segment projects, it’s time to move on to something a little more demanding. We will take a look at serial communications with the Arduino. We will go over what serial actually is, and how it is sent. Then we will dig into actually communicating between the laptop and Arduino by having the Arduino simply echo back whatever it gets. After that we will change the design so that the data sent from the laptop will change the brightness of an LED. If time permits, we will go over SoftwareSerial and use it to connect two Arduino’s together.

Agenda:
1. What is serial
2. 8N1 encoding
3. UARTs
4. Using the serial library
5. Create sketch to talk to the Arduino over serial
6. Set LED brightness with serial
7. Time permitting:
a. SoftwareSerial
b. Connect to another Arduino with SoftwareSerial

If you cannot attend the class in person, E-Mail arduino@unallocatedspace.org and ask to be added to the Google Hangout. The hangout will be started just before class (6:45-7:15 PM). If you have not gotten an invite by 7:15 PM, then please E-Mail arduino@unallocatedspace.org.

The slides for the upcoming and previous classes can be found here. The slides are generally made during the three days before a class.

Required Items:
1. An Arduino board of some kind (Uno, Due, Mega, Boarduino, Duemilanove, etc)
2. If your board does not have USB programming built in, you will need a programmer (AVRISP, Bus Pirate, Bus Blaster, AVR Dragon, another Arduino, etc)
3. Breadboard (the long one if possible, though the small square-ish ones are okay for now)
4. USB cable for your board and/or programmer
5. Laptop with the Arduino IDE installed (Linux, Windows, or Mac)
6. Jumper wires for your breadboard

Provided Items:
1. Breadboard and jumpers (if you don’t have any of either)
2. Resistors (200 – 500 Ohm)

Since Unallocated Space runs off of donations, we would like to mention that the recommended donation for this class is $5. It is by no means a requirement, but it does help us keep the lights on! Attendance to the space, and this class, is 100% free to all!