Get Teens Coding!

"Get Teens Coding" is an Eagle Scout Project hosted by our team with the goal of helping schools teach their students coding. It is a sad truth that many schools do not have the knowledge or materials to effectively teach programing to their students. This is why this project was created: to help these schools (and individuals) teach and learn coding.

You can use this project for yourself by simply scrolling down. We hope that you too can learn to love to code!

How does it Work?

“Get Teens Coding!” shows you how to build inexpensive kits of electronics along with educational resources to build and program circuits using Arduino. The kits use breadboards and compatible components such as LEDs, LCDs, RFIDs, servos, and other items to provide fast and fun prototyping and allow reusability of components. Beginning with simple, copy-and-past projects that light up LEDs, students get excited about coding and learn how to teach themselves.

To build 20 kits, we ordered the items on this parts list from Amazon, but you may source your materials from anywhere you like. Because some of these come in sets, you will have a few extra of some items. (Note that all links were accurate as of February 2022.)

Lets Get Started!

First, install the Arduino IDE software by following this download guide:

LED Basics

Next, learn the basics with some simple projects from the Arduino Project Hub. Don't be afraid to just look things up if you are confused or have questions. Most of the problems or questions you will have, other people will have had also.

Make an LED turn on and/or blink.
- Hint: Look at the provided resistor cards to obtain the values of different resistors, or you can look up the color band pattern for your desired resistance.
Look at this example and see if you can modify the code you copied to get the LED to blink. Play with the timing if you want to.
Look at this example to see if you can get your LED to fade on and off by modifying your code.
- Bonus: See if you can get 2 LEDs to work. Can you make them do the opposite thing–one on and one off?
Let's use a potentiometer to control the fading of the light ourselves.

Learn How It Works

Now that we’ve had some fun, let’s do some reading to learn a little more about the software.

Level Up!

Ok, let's have some more fun.

Control a servo with a potentiometer.
- This kicks things up a bit. You might have to start looking things up, and that's ok. That is the point. The hope is you will learn to look up how to use any part you want and integrate it into a circuit. Right now, we are starting simply, but eventually you will be able to build any circuit you want with whatever parts you want, even if you don't initially know how to use a part.
- After you get that to work, look up how to use the keypad and see if you can use it to control the servo position.
Let's push ourselves. This will teach you how to use a liquid crystal display (LCD) on an I2C interface. This tutorial is very good. There are some things you don't have to do such as setting a unique I2C address (You will understand when you read the tutorial.) This will take time and you will probably struggle some. That’s ok and it’s expected.

Pull It All Together

Check out this video to see what your project could look like!

Last thing–this will teach you how to have a project in mind and how to break it down and build it. For this project, build a circuit that uses the RFID module to confirm the correct key card. Then use the LCD screen to prompt the user to enter a password. Then if those two are correct, change the position of a servo and print “OPEN” on the LCD.

You will probably struggle. I know I did when I built this exact circuit. Remember to break it down and look things up. You are not expected to just know how to use these parts. You are expected to look things up. Look up tutorials and code for how to use a part. Your job is to put it all together.

You can break this down however you would like, or you can follow this suggestion.

Get the RFID scanner to work.
Get the keypad to work after the RFID scanner confirms the correct key card.
Change the position of the servo.
Have fun! Add whatever you want if you'd like to. You could add LEDs that have red on when locked and green on when unlocked. Really, this is your circuit, so do whatever. You can also not add anything if you think this circuit does not need anything else.

Congratulations!!!!!!!!

You finished the introduction!!

What Will You Do Next?

Remember this was not a tutorial on teaching you Arduino. This was a tutorial on teaching you how to teach yourself. Look back and see all that you just did. See that you taught yourself! You now have the skills to teach yourself anything and everything Arduino related. Go have fun and build whatever you want. Go crazy!

Go here to watch other tutorials

This link will give you some extra reading for the IDE. This will bolster your background and could be helpful if things confuse you later, such as using the serial monitor. Not all of this is relevant to you, such as uploading to non-native boards, but a lot of it is.