Tutorials

This tutorial covers the concept of analog and digital signals, as they relate to electronics.

An introduction to integrated circuits (ICs). Electronics' ubiquitous black chips. Includes a focus on the variety of IC packages.

An overview of component circuit symbols, and tips and tricks for better schematic reading. Click here, and become schematic-literate today!

This tutorial will explain how to use and convert between the standard metric prefixes.

An introduction to I2C, one of the main embedded communications protocols in use today.

How to create your own e-textiles buttons.

Let's see what's inside the amazing new Leap Motion input device!

An overview of electric power, the rate of energy transfer. We'll talk definition of power, watts, equations, and power ratings. 1.21 gigawatts of tutorial fun!

Learn about all things capacitors. How they're made. How they work. How they look. Types of capacitors. Series/parallel capacitors. Capacitor applications.

An introduction to polarity in electronic components. Discover what polarity is, which parts have it, and how to identify it.

We can see electricity in action on our computers, lighting our houses, as lightning strikes in thunderstorms, but what is it? This is not an easy question, but this tutorial will shed some light on it!

How to install drivers for the FTDI Basic on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Learn the difference between 3.3V and 5V devices and logic levels.

Instructions on hooking up to and communicating with the Si4707 Weather Band Radio Breakout using an Arduino.

A guest tutorial from the astonishingly talented Mario the Magician showing how to put together your own servo-controlled lapel flower.

Welcome to the wonderful world of breadboards. Here we will learn what a breadboard is and how to use one to build your very first circuit.

Make a soft circuit firefly jar with conductive thread, LEDs, and the LilyTwinkle!

A diode primer! Diode properties, types of diodes, and diode applications.

The LilyPad MP3 Player is an amazing little board that contains almost everything you need to play audio files. You can use it to create all kinds of noisy projects, from MP3 hoodies to talking teddy bears. Your imagination is the only limit! This tutorial will help you get started.

A tutorial on electronics' most overlooked and underappreciated component: the switch! Here we explain the difference between momentary and maintained switches and what all those acronyms (NO, NC, SPDT, SPST, ...) stand for.

Send serial data from Arduino to Processing and back - even at the same time!

A tutorial on all things resistors. What is a resistor, how do they behave in parallel/series, decoding the resistor color codes, and resistor applications.

How to hook up and use the OpenSegment display shield. The OpenSegment is the big brother to the Serial 7-Segment Display. They run on the same firmware, however the OpenSegment is about twice as big.

A quick introduction to accelerometers, how they work, and why they're used.