By Aryeh Laufer

Lesson 2: Get Multiple LED’s to blink

Goal: Get multiple LED’s blink in different patterns.

Part 1: Getting an LED to light up on the breadboard

Part 2: Getting multiple LED’s lit up on the breadboard

Part 1: Getting an LED to light up on the breadboard

Last time we successfully had an LED plugged directly in to our Arduino board,
as shown below.
If we want to get multiple LED’s to blink, we will need to move the LED directly off
our Arduino board, and on to our breadboard. \

What is a breadboard?

A breadboard is essentially Metal strips with a plastic covering on top with holes in it to keep
wires in place and attached to metal. There are two long strips on either side, with many
numbered shorter strips in the center of the board. The long strips are usually used for power
and/or Ground (GND).

The first two and last two blue and red columns share a connection vertically.
A-E share a connection horizontally
F-J share a connection horizontally
A-E connections and F-J connections are not bridged across the center.
On the right hand side, look at the breadboard. It is simply strips of metal - on both sides, there
are two long strips of metal. In the middle sections, there are 2 sections of 30 strips of metal. To
create a circuit, you’ll always want your LED legs to be on different individual strips of metal.
Note that in both images, we are using GND and 12. The first time, we connected
the LED directly to the Arduino board, but now we are using wires and a
breadboard (both made of metal, which conducts electricity).

1. First we connect a wire from GND to the minus rail of our breadboard. This
makes all the holes on the rail GND.
2. Then, place the LED into the breadboard, with the legs in different
numbered lines on the breadboard.
3. Place a wire in the minus rail, and connect it to the line in the breadboard
with the shorter leg of the LED.
4. Place wire in to the D12 pin, and connect it to the line in the breadboard
with the long leg of the LED.

Don’t forget to upload the code!

Part 2: Getting multiple LED’s lit up on the breadboard

To add more LED’s, we’ll use more code and more pins. Repeat what you did
above with 2 more LEDS’s, like in the diagram below.

Recall our code from Lesson 1 to blink one LED:

We now need to add code in to send electricity out of our 10 and 8 pins to blink
the LED’s. Lets start with pin 10.

Note that its the same code for the 12 pin; now I just set digitalWrite to 10, and I
shortened the delay to make it blink faster. Last but not least, I will code the 8 pin:
Don’t forget to upload the code, and if its not working, connect your arduino with
tools -> port -> and choose the port that says something like COM X (Arduino
Uno).

You now should have multiple Blinking LED’s!