enchanted objects // workshop 3

So this workshop was a bit of a struggle for me if I'm totally honest, and this will certainly be my most lackluster learning journal. I guess the silver lining is that it gives me something to focus on practicing and returning to in my spare time. I feel that the motor will be useful in future projects, so I will seek guidance should I need it in the future, as well as conduct my own experiments.

We did four examples: simple servo setup, wiggle motor, push button motor, and touch sensor motor. I feel like a lot of people got lost as well and required assistance, myself included. Looking back at my notes, I certainly did not take enough. It felt like a lot of information was thrown at us in the span of 48 hours. The main thing I wrote down was that the analogue pins on the Arduino can be used as digital pins, but that the digital pins cannot be used as analog pins. According to Medium.com,

"Choosing Your Pin: A Matter of Purpose

Deciding between analog and digital pins depends on the task at hand:

Digital Pins: Use them when you want something to be either on or off, like turning an LED on and off or reading the state of a button.

Analog Pins: Opt for these when you need to capture a range of values, such as reading from a potentiometer or a light sensor."

And according to thestempmedia.com,

"Digital pins

Arduino’s digital pins offer two voltage levels: HIGH (5V) or LOW (0V). When set to LOW, a pin provides 0V to external devices, while setting it to HIGH delivers 5V, enabling triggering of relays or LED illumination. Additionally, digital pins can function as input to read data from peripheral devices or as output to power sensors and other devices. On the other hand, analog pins are used to read analog values in the form of voltage levels ranging from 0V to 5V.

Analog pins

These are the pins that are used to read the analog values from devices in the form of voltage levels between 0v to 5v".

So what I have gathered from class and from this research is that you cannot use digital pins as analog pins because there is too much voltage for the analog pins to handle what the digital pins would need it to do.

I followed along and did all of the set ups and deliverables pretty well, starting with simple servo and patterns, and going on to the servo with two push buttons. This is where I had a failure of sorts. I had 4 alligator clips total, 2 on the Arduino and two on the breadboard. When I used the two on the breadboard, only one of the buttons worked. I'm not sure why this happened but I've attached the video below.

I then took one of the sensors off the breadboard, and the buttons worked. This is the set up and the code I used. I also included the video of the success.