ETEC 528 Makerspaces This Little Light of Mine, I'm Gonna Let it Shine!

Our first Maker Challenge for the class was to begin to explore the Arduino IDE and simple circuits. We were challenged to build circuit #1, the blinking LED. This proved to be a very big challenge for me. I began with using the code provided at https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/sik-experiment-guide-for-arduino---v32/experiment-1-blinking-an-led. While I double and triple checked that I had the resistor, LED, and both jumper wires correctly placed, when I copied and pasted in the code, I continuously got an error message. I tried this multiple times thinking I had copied something wrong. I tried deleting what seemed to be unimportant parts of the code (notes that were added on each line) but still got the error code. I retyped it all myself and still the same error message. I rearranged the wires on the bread board again, began to get teary-eyed and seriously considered giving up, dropping the class, and not graduating! I was feeling so lost and overwhelmed! This was not at all what I was expecting in this class!

After a little mental break and contemplating my life choices, I turned to YouTube for a how-to video as a last resort before giving up on my entire college career! This is the video that saved my sanity and hopefully my degree! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKekzzj5844&t=622s. I followed step-by-step, pausing multiple times to arrange wires and double check everything. I was concerned because the placement of the LED, resistor, and jumper wires, was different than what I had tried in the previously mentioned tutorial, but figured it was worth a try. I then added the code very carefully, making sure I didn't miss a capitalization or semicolon, and to my great surprise, my little LED began to blink! I couldn't believe it had actually worked! There were cheers! There were happy tears! This little light I had "created" gave me hope that I may actually graduate in May!

I then took the wires and LED off the bread board just to see if I could do it again without the video, and my light once again started blinking! I tried it with a red LED the next time and my excitement was renewed! I then started making very simple changes, such as moving the LED, wires, and resistor to a different row on the bread board and slightly changing my code to match, and to my amazement, my light is still shining brightly!

Video of my little blinking light: https://youtu.be/XbNOjoRsnvI

Photo of Code: