Making Things Light Up, Part 1

Having a single LED turn on was no problem: bring over power (5V) and ground from the Arduino, add a 220 Ω resistor, connect the LED to power and ground. Light!

Powering an LED
Powering an LED

Adding a push button complicated the circuit. Initially I had wired in the circuit in such a way that the default state for the LED was on, and pushing the button turned it off. Originally I thought perhaps this was a property of the switch itself. Digging into the switch, I realized that I had placed the LED in the same row as where I had located the resistor. However, when I moved the LED to the other row of the switch, it worked as expected.

Simple push button
Simple push button

Wiring multiple switches in series and parallel was fairly straightforward once I understood how the electrons flowed through the push button. For demonstrating a series circuit, I wired the output of each switch to the input of the following switch.

Three switches in series
Three switches in series

To complicate the series, I also added an LED at each switch, showing that the last LED (green) would only light up when the other red LEDs were also lit. Lesson learned: use a tripod when shooting video, one usable hand is not enough!

Switches in series with multiple LEDs
Switches in series with multiple LEDs

In parallel, I wired up an LED to each switch—whoops! I realized in hindsight that it was meant to be a single LED. However, the circuit still worked as expected. Had I just used one LED, I would have had to wire the output from each button to a new row that the LED was connected two—allowing either button to turn on the LED. Next time!

Parallel Circuit
Parallel Circuit

Part 2: making my own switch coming soon!