Digital Sandbox Experiment Guide

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Contributors: jimblom, bri_huang
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Welcome to the Digital Sandbox!

The Digital Sandbox is a learning platform that engages both the software and hardware worlds. It’s powered by a microcontroller that can interact with real-world inputs – like light or temperature sensors – while at the same time controlling LEDs, motors, and other outputs. The Digital Sandbox is equipped with everything, on board, that you will need to complete 13 experiments including controlling an LED, measuring how loud things are, detecting the temperature is, and more. Think of this as a SparkFun Inventor’s Kit all in one board!

DS Cover Graphic

This tutorial walks you through a series of experiments that demonstrate how to program the Digital Sandbox using ArduBlock, a graphical programming language for Arduino.

If you're interested in programming your Sandbox using the regular Arduino programming language, check out our parallel tutorial: the Digital Sandbox Arduino Companion.

Experiment List (Table of Contents):

  1. Setup, Loop, and Blink
  2. Exploring Blink
  3. Multi-Blink
  4. Dimming (the Hard Way)
  5. Dimming (the Easy Way)
  6. Color Mixing
  7. Number Storage with Variables
  8. If This Then That
  9. The Reaction Tester
  10. Serial Calculator
  11. Do the Analog Slide
  12. Automatic Night Light
  13. Thermal Alert!
  14. Sound Detecting
  15. Opto-Theremin (Addon)
  16. Serial Motoring (Addon)
  17. Servo Sweeper (Addon)

Please note that experiments 14, 15, and 16 require the Digital Sandbox Add-On, which can be purchased separately.