[0:00] Recently, I've become obsessed with
[0:01] tech. Just this year, I created multiple
[0:04] websites, APIs, and even a mobile app
[0:06] all whilst being a high school student.
[0:07] But, what I haven't done yet is create
[0:09] real-life tangible electronics. Well,
[0:11] that changes today. I ordered a small
[0:14] amount of parts from Amazon, and by a
[0:16] small amount, I mean a module kit, some
[0:19] breadboards, which are basically just
[0:20] naked circuit boards, microcontrollers,
[0:22] sensors. Oh, yeah, it has two layers.
[0:25] Wires, even more wires, and an entire
[0:28] cupboard full of parts like LEDs,
[0:30] buttons, resistors, and more. And of
[0:32] course, you can't forget my MacBook Air.
[0:34] I'll be using this machine to do all the
[0:36] programming. Well, enough talk. Today, I
[0:38] have to build out two different working
[0:40] Arduino projects to prove that I
[0:41] understand electronics. For this first
[0:43] project, I want to build out a sequence
[0:44] memory game exactly like the one on
[0:46] Human Benchmark. Basically, an algorithm
[0:48] will create a random sequence that gets
[0:50] longer as you recall more of the pattern
[0:51] correctly.
[0:55] But, the bad news was I could barely get
[0:57] a singular LED to light up.
[1:01] The good thing is that now I know
[1:02] exactly how circuits work. So, I got to
[1:04] work trying to wire buttons, but I
[1:06] immediately regretted that a few seconds
[1:08] later.
[1:10] As you can see now that it's been
[1:11] another hour, I finally got all the
[1:13] wiring right and began coding the
[1:14] sequence memory logic. Arduino uses C++,
[1:17] which is a coding language I'm familiar
[1:18] with, so this part should be easy,
[1:20] right?
[1:22] Okay, I guess this was much harder than
[1:24] I thought. A few more blog articles
[1:26] later and many attempts of debugging, I
[1:28] finally got the sequence memory game to
[1:29] work, and I even added a buzzer for some
[1:31] sound effects.
[1:46] Okay, it's the second day, and now that
[1:47] project one is out of the way, that took
[1:49] way too long. I'm going to proceed with
[1:51] the second project, which is going to be
[1:52] a joystick LED controller. This time,
[1:55] I'm going to ditch the large
[1:56] microcontroller and use this teeny tiny
[1:57] one called the Arduino Nano, which
[1:59] shouldn't be an issue considering that I
[2:01] now know exactly how circuits work.
[2:03] Nevermind, I literally did the first
[2:05] step wrong. The joystick was a bit more
[2:07] complicated with five different wires,
[2:08] so I hopped on YouTube to find a
[2:10] tutorial. Luckily, this time I did a bit
[2:11] more thinking before actually doing, so
[2:13] I was able to bang out this project in
[2:15] less than 1 hour.
[2:24] I'll be honest, it's a bit less cool
[2:25] than my first project, but definitely
[2:27] teaches some important stuff about
[2:28] wiring and coding. Now, it's finally
[2:30] time. I want to address the question, is
[2:32] it worth learning electronics such as
[2:33] Arduino? Well, for me, probably not.
[2:35] This is because as someone who has
[2:37] experience in software, a lot of people,
[2:39] including me, think that software and
[2:40] hardware are basically interchangeable.
[2:42] Just because I can code and deploy a
[2:44] full stack website doesn't mean that I
[2:45] can light up an LED as you saw in this
[2:47] video. I see that hardware and software
[2:49] are two pretty different sub niches of
[2:51] tech, so it's probably better choosing
[2:53] one or the other. But, for fun, yeah,
[2:55] why not? Arduino is amazing.