I decided to finally pick up with my coding journey. I feel like I fell out of love with coding while in school because we weren't doing anything fun. I understand that it was to teach the basics but then jumping from Python and into Java felt like I was moving backwards so, I just stopped coding outside of school. That said, since being laid off in January, I thought I would hop on the skills train while I aim to transition into cybersecurity full time with the Inventr.io 30 Days Lost In Space project.
Essentially, the story behind it is you're a space explorer, your controller/dashboard was destroyed, and you sunk into the sea. Now you have to rebuild it to get your ship running again, or at least give yourself more time by repairing the oxygen system.
Day 1 was all about setting yourself up for success. I downloaded the Arduino IDE and plugged my microcontroller (Hero board) into my laptop's USB port to test some sample code that was included in the IDE.
The built in led light that we can control (pin 13) began blinking every second. As I went to choose the COM, when I uploaded the Blink sample code, I kept receiving this weird error ( totally forgot to document it, won't make that mistake again) in the IDE. I could have easily googled the issue, but I wanted to do some troubleshooting myself so that I can learn from deducing what could be causing the error.
I :
- checked the USB end going into the computer and reinserted it
- restarted the IDE twice
- tried a different sample code
Then finally, I decided to reinsert the USB on the microcontroller's side and heard BEE BOO BOO DEE , you know that sound when a device connects to your PC? Yeah, that one. I immediately checked the COMs choices and saw that there was a new COM and it had USB next to it. EUREKA!
I held my breath as I uploaded the code and it said " Upload successful! " I modified the code a bit to test with the blink speeds, and then used the Bare Minimum code to clear out any blinking.
Once I learn how to embed my own video, I'll put mine up here. For now, here is a pic of the Wall E BlokHeads I put together this morning.
Even though I understood overall what the code was doing, it was nice that they had a video explaining how everything works. I'm looking forward to seeing what I can build over the next 30 Days!
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