Exploring the Wonders of Arduino: Unleashing Creativity and Innovation

Since childhood, instead of playing with toys, I used to break toys to see what was in them. I was very interested in these things. I once opened and ruined a new watch the day I bought it. That day my mother scolded me for this. I used to watch attentively when the electricians fixed the TV or the fan. Then when I grew up, my interest in electronics started to grow. I used to make small fans and lights with motors, LEDs and batteries. To be honest, I've wasted more than I've made. After that I refrained from doing these things for many days.

Then when I was in class 10, our school held a science fair. I saw a lot of interesting electronic gadgets out there . I was just watching without any  detailed knowledge or idea about them but my interest grew more and more. I didn't even know their names. Then after going to college, I got acquainted with electronic circuits and logic gates. And at the same time I got my first smartphone. I used to try to learn about them from Youtube but could not learn much as there was no practical idea. I joined the college science club to get practical ideas but by then my HSC exams were approaching. 

Then one day while scrolling through YouTube I came across a project . I clicked on the video and was amazed at the capabilities of a small device called Arduino. I started researching about it on YouTube and the internet. Then my earlier interest in electronics and my desire to learn about Arduino came together.

Arduino is an open source electronics platform that combines hardware and software to create interactive  projects. It consists of a microcontroller, as the brain of the system, and a development environment that includes a programming language and libraries to facilitate the process. Arduino's power lies in its versatility, which allows users to build projects like robots, automation systems, wearable devices and more. It works by writing code on the computer, compiling it and then uploading it to the Arduino board, which executes the instructions. There are different types of Arduino boards available, each with specific features and capabilities designed for different applications, such as Arduino Uno, Arduino Nano, Arduino Mega and specialized boards like Arduino Due for more advanced projects.

connecting with pc

The opportunity to work with Arduino and circuits in a fairly practical way came when I found out about Tinkercad after entering university. Then I started designing circuits with Tinkercad and doing very small Arduino projects.

Tinkercad is an online platform that helps people simulate and explore electronics and programming. It offers an interactive space to design and test circuits and Arduino projects. Tinkercad lets you experiment and innovate without needing actual physical parts.

One day I decided to buy an Arduino board to make a small project. My objective is to create a system that can detect nearby objects and generate a signal to let us know about the object. It can help the blind to navigate.

I started collecting all the materials needed to make the projects. Basically ultrasonic sensors, 900a GSM modeule, breadboard, battery,voltage converter and a buzzer are the main components of the project. Apart from this it requires some other components including wires, LEDs, resistors, jumpers, and some pins  to make the project.

First I designed it virtually in Tinkercad and then connected all the components physically and had success. But I faced a problem while uploading the code to Arduino. The system was not working perfectly. After much searching I found a bug in the code and fixed it with the help of the internet. I tested it many times to see if it can detect objects correctly .Each time it detected an object, buzzers sounded and LEDs flashed. Everything was working fine and I was very happy to do my first Arduino project.