Welcome to the world of electronics!
Introductory Electronics Activities
These electronics activities were designed to help you learn basic circuit and programming concepts with circuits that can be built and simulated virtually in TinkerCad – there’s no need to gather any electronic components or build physical circuits!
There are also a number of lab activities designed for teachers to use with students breadboarding physical circuits, and these assume that power supplies, multimeters, breadboards, and a variety of common electronic components are available. Let’s start learning electronics!
Basic circuit concepts.
These basic circuit activities are designed to help you learn important electrical circuit concepts if you’re just starting out, or to reinforce the basic circuit concepts if you’ve learned them before. Each activity has an accompanying Google Document that leads you through a guided exploration of each circuit’s characteristics.
Ohm’s Law
If you’re an absolute beginner, start here. Understanding Ohm’s law is essential to understanding the operation of all other electronic circuits.
Series Circuits
Series circuits connect two or more components in a way that allows them to divide and control potential – a very useful concept in input and output circuits.
Parallel Circuits
Parallel circuits connect two or more components in a way that allows them to work independently (or divide current).
Microcontroller circuit concepts.
Microcontroller input and output circuits make use of externally connected series components. Learn more about how these circuits enable microcontrollers to sense inputs and control output devices. The accompanying Google Documents help guide you as you explore the operation of the circuits.
Input Pull-up Circuits
The key to using many kinds of analogue input devices with microcontrollers is a series circuit known as a pull-up circuit. Learn how to use a variety of them here.
LED Circuits
LEDs are common microcontroller output devices, but they’re not considered to be loads. Find out more about their interesting behaviour and how to use them.
Introductory Arduino programming activities for ARPS
These introductory programming activities are designed for use with the Educational Starter configuration of our ARPS circuit combined with an actual Arduino UNO. Since many of the ARPS programming activities work great in the Tinkercad circuit simulator using a virtual Arduino, we shared all of them here so that you can start developing your programming skills without having to purchase and assemble any hardware first, or even install any programming software. It all just works in Tinkercad!
Each of these introductory activities includes a complete, working program pre-loaded into the Tinkercad code editor. The main program code is followed by Programming Analysis Activities to help reinforce and expand your understanding of concepts introduced in the original program, as well as Programming Activities to extend and apply your knowledge and skills while letting you create new programs.
Intro-1: Input and Output
If you’re ready to start learning Arduino programming, one of the first things you’ll need to know how to do is read inputs and control outputs. Start learning here!
Intro-4: Functions
As programs start to get longer and more complex you’ll want to divide your program tasks into functions, and understanding how they work enables you to use other people’s pre-made functions as well.
Intro-2: Variables
The next step after learning to use inputs and outputs is implementing variables to store the state of your program or your circuit’s inputs.
Intro-5: Analogue Input
Digital inputs were an easy way to start, but for more accuracy you’ll need to learn about analogue input. The companion serial debugging techniques introduced in this activity will help you make sense of the inputs.
Intro-3: Loops
The real reason we invented computers was to do our work for us. Loops allow your microcontroller to do its tasks a certain number of times, or forever.
ARPS starter program templates
These starter program templates use the Tinkercad equivalent of the full ARPS circuit to let you explore the capabilities of ARPS and get a head start on different types of robot programs. All of these circuits can be used with any of the introductory Arduino programming activities as well.
ARPS full robot circuit
The fully-built ARPS robot circuit can be used to simulate the operation of all of the parts of ARPS within Tinkercad, and the included source code can act as a template for your future robot programs.
Line-following robot starter
This full ARPS circuit includes a starter program template that can be used to make a simple line-following robot. The included program code helps you test your robot’s motors.
Sumo robot starter
Get a start on structuring a simple classroom Sumo robot program with this starter template. Start by testing your motor and sensor code in Tinkercad before programming your Sumo robot.
Electronics Lab Activities
These electronics lab activities are designed to be printed out for students to use to explore electronics concepts using real components on breadboards. They will help to get beginners used to building and testing circuits on breadboards, and using power supplies and multimeters for test measurements. The activities are coded to align with selected courses in the Ontario Computer Technology curriculum, but feel free to use them for students at any grade or level that you feel is appropriate.
Resistor Activities
Beginner Activities (TEJ2O)
Activity 1.0 – Resistors
Activity 1.1 – Ohm’s Law
Activity 1.2 – Series Circuits
Activity 1.3 - Parallel Circuits
Review Activities (TEJ3M)
Activity 1.0 – Resistors and Ohm’s Law
Activity 1.1 – Series and Parallel Circuits
Diode Activities
Beginner Activities (TEJ2O)
Activity 2.0 – Diodes
Activity 2.1 – LEDs
Advanced Activities (TEJ3M)
Activity 2.0 – Diodes and LEDs
Activity 2.1 – Diode Rectifiers