beginner
44 pages across tutorials, modules, pinouts and guides.
Door Sensor
A TinkerBlock board that takes the two bare wires of a magnetic door or window sensor on a screw terminal and puts it between VCC and SIGNAL. A closed sensor reads HIGH; open, SIGNAL floats, because the board has no pull-down, so you set one in setup(). The red LED lights while the sensor is closed: it is not a power light.
Slim Joystick
A thumb stick and six buttons on one long TinkerBlock board, on six pins. X and Y are two potentiometers, read on analog pins; KEY is the click under the stick, LOW at rest and HIGH when pushed; and all six buttons share BTNS, one analog pin, through a ladder of 10 kΩ resistors that gives each its own voltage. One button reads at a time.
Dual Axis Joystick
A thumbstick on a square TinkerBlock board, on six pins: GND, VCC, NC, X, Y and SW. X and Y are two potentiometers from VCC to GND, read on analog pins; SW is the click under the stick, LOW at rest and HIGH when pressed, with its own pull-down. Every line reaches VCC, so VCC is your board's logic voltage. A PWR light and an SW light show power and each click.
1.8-inch TFT Display
A 1.77-inch colour TFT, 128 by 160 pixels, with an ST7735S controller on SPI, on a TinkerBlock board with an eight-pin header. 3.3 V only, with nothing on the board to shift 5 V signals down: an Uno goes through a TK97. The backlight stays off until BL is driven HIGH.
4-Direction Tilt Sensor
One metal roller in a square switch with four corner contacts, on a TinkerBlock board: tip an edge down and the roller joins that side's two lines. Your board finds which pair by holding one line LOW and reading who follows. Four answers and none, no angle, and four red LEDs that light when a line is held LOW.
74HC595 Segment LED
One 0.8-inch red seven-segment digit with a 74HC595 shift register under it, on a TinkerBlock board: three wires set all eight segments, one byte per digit, a 1 lights a segment. Common cathode, 150 Ω per segment, VCC on your board's logic supply, and no chaining: the 595's serial output is not connected.
Active Buzzer
A 12 mm electromagnetic buzzer with its own oscillator, on a TinkerBlock board. SIGNAL HIGH beeps at about 2.4 kHz, LOW stops it: one note, one line of code. An S8050 transistor switches it from VCC, so your pin gives a few milliamps and VCC can be 5V beside a 3.3 V board. There is no pull-down on SIGNAL, so use a pin that stays LOW while your board boots.
Ambient Light Sensor
A phototransistor and a 4.7 kΩ resistor on a TinkerBlock board: light makes a current, the resistor turns it into a voltage, and SIGNAL rises with the light. A lit room reads low on the scale, bright light flattens just under VCC, and it sees near infrared best.
Analog Microphone
An electret capsule and a one-transistor amplifier on a TinkerBlock board. SIGNAL rests at a level set by the transistor's gain and swings above and below it with sound, in a band of roughly 75 Hz to 1 kHz. Read the peak-to-peak over 50 ms: it hears claps, knocks and loud voices, and it is not a recording microphone.
Analog to Digital Signal
An LM393 comparator on a TinkerBlock board: plug an analog block into the IN socket, set a threshold with the blue knob, and DIG tells your board whether the block's voltage is above or below it. The block's own voltage passes through on ANA, and a slide switch printed H and L turns the answer over.
Collision Sensor
A lever microswitch with its 10 kΩ pull-down and a red hit light already fitted: SIGNAL reads HIGH while the lever is pushed in. The bumper for a TinkerBlock robot, and the sense that never reports a wall that is not there.
DHT11 Temperature and Humidity Sensor
A DHT11 on a TinkerBlock board, the TK38: temperature from 0 to 50 °C to ±2 °C and humidity from 20 to 80 % to ±5 %, in whole numbers, on one data wire. The 10 kΩ pull-up is fitted, so it is three wires and one library. Feed VCC what your board's pins run at: the pull-up ties DATA to it.
Disc Potentiometer
A 10 kΩ thumbwheel potentiometer wired as a voltage divider: turn the wheel and SIGNAL runs from 0 V to VCC, read by one analog pin. The wheel lies flat and overhangs the board's edge, so a thumb turns it from the side.
Dual Bright LEDs
Two 5730-size white LEDs on a TinkerBlock board, one warm (3000K) and one cool (6500K), each switched by its own S8050 transistor with a 10 Ω resistor from VCC. A pin for each colour, PWM for brightness and for every white between the two. VCC may be 5 V on a 3.3 V board; on 5 V, cap the PWM at two thirds.
EEPROM Memory
An AT24C128 I2C EEPROM on a TinkerBlock board: 16,384 bytes that keep their values with the power off, at address 0x50. VCC goes to your board's logic supply because the pull-ups end at VCC, each write takes up to 5 ms, a write wraps inside its 64-byte page, and each byte takes about a million writes.
Five-Direction Joystick
A five-way navigation switch on one analog pin: four tilts and a press, each joining SIGNAL to its own point of a chain of 10 kΩ resistors, so each push is its own voltage. Read it with analogRead, not digitalRead. VCC is your board's logic voltage.
Hall Effect Sensor
An omnipolar Hall switch on a TinkerBlock board: bring either pole of a magnet near and SIGNAL goes LOW and a red light comes on. No contact to wear out, it works through plastic, and it looks at the field every 22 ms, so it is made for doors, lids and slow wheels.
Infrared Receiver
An infrared light sensor on a TinkerBlock board: an Everlight PT334-6B phototransistor in a black 5 mm package and a 10 kΩ load, so SIGNAL is an analog voltage that rises with how much infrared arrives, steady or flashing. The partner of the TK63 for a break-beam. It is not the TK15 IR Receiver: it decodes no remote, and the TK15 ignores steady light.
Infrared Speed Sensor
A GK105A slotted optical switch on a TinkerBlock board: an infrared beam across a 5 mm slot, judged by an LM393 comparator. Something in the slot reads HIGH; a clear slot reads LOW and lights a red LED. Put a slotted disc through it and count pulses for rpm, up to about 1,900 a second. VCC must be your board's logic voltage.
Infrared Transmitter
A 5 mm, 940 nm infrared LED on a TinkerBlock board, switched by an S8050 transistor, with one 150 Ω resistor setting its current from VCC and a red LED that shows when it is on. SIGNAL HIGH turns it on. Your pin only feeds the transistor, so VCC may be 5 V on a 3.3 V board. Blink it, send remote-control codes to a TK15, or make a break-beam with a TK64.
IR Receiver
A Vishay TSOP18138 38 kHz infrared receiver on a TinkerBlock board: SIGNAL idles HIGH and goes LOW while a remote sends, and the IRremote library turns those lows into an address and a command.
IR Sender
An Everlight IR908-7C 940 nm infrared LED, switched by a transistor, on a TinkerBlock board. SIGNAL HIGH lights it; your microcontroller makes the 38 kHz carrier, and one 150 Ω resistor decides how far it reaches.
Knock Sensor
A spring vibration switch with its 10 kΩ pull-down, a 100 nF capacitor and a red flash light already fitted: SIGNAL goes HIGH for a moment each time a knock swings the spring onto its rod. A tap on a table as a button, a door that was knocked, a box that was dropped.
Latching Button
A push-on, push-off switch with its pull-down and a red indicator LED already fitted: one press turns SIGNAL HIGH and it stays HIGH, through a reset or a power cut, until the next press.
Linear Hall Effect Sensor
An SS49E-type linear Hall sensor on a TinkerBlock board: an analog voltage that rests at half of VCC with no field and moves about 3.25 mV per gauss at 5 V, up for one pole and down for the other. It tells you how strong a magnetic field is and which way it points. VCC must be your board's logic voltage, and it is not a current sensor on its own.
LM75 Temperature Sensor
An LM75B digital temperature sensor on a TinkerBlock board, read over I2C at address 0x48: two bytes that are already degrees, in steps of an eighth, within 2 °C from −25 to 100 °C. VCC goes to your board's logic supply because the pull-ups end at VCC.
Logic Level Converter
Six bidirectional channels between 3.3 V and 5 V on a TinkerBlock board: L1 to L6 in a socket on the 3.3 V side, H1 to H6 on a header on the 5 V side, each a BSS138 with a 10 kΩ pull-up either side. It needs only 5V and GND: an ME6211 regulator makes the 3.3 V side's supply, so the socket's 3V3 pin is an output that powers a 3.3 V block, and is never fed.
Mechanical Key and LED
A keyboard switch with a WS2812 RGB LED under its clear keycap, as two separate circuits: the key reads HIGH when pressed through its own 10 kΩ pull-down, and the LED shows whatever colour your sketch sends it. VCC is your board's logic voltage.
NTC Thermistor
A 10 kΩ NTC thermistor in a divider with a fixed 10 kΩ: SIGNAL is half of VCC at 25 °C and falls as it warms. Read it on any analog pin and turn it into degrees with two lines of arithmetic.
Passive Buzzer
A magnetic buzzer with no oscillator of its own, switched by a transistor on a TinkerBlock board. It sounds only while SIGNAL is a square wave, at the wave's frequency, so tone() plays any note; it is loudest at its 2.7 kHz resonance. Held HIGH it is silent and the coil draws about 200 mA.
Piezo-Ceramic Sensor
A 22 mm piezo disc on a TinkerBlock board that needs no supply: two wires, GND and SIGNAL. A tap makes a hump on SIGNAL that rises in about a millisecond and drains in about a tenth of a second, taller for a harder tap. It senses change, not weight, and nothing on the board holds SIGNAL below 3.3 V.
Push Button
A 12 mm momentary push button with its 10 kΩ pull-down and a red press light already fitted: SIGNAL reads HIGH while the button is down. The first input in the kit, and the module that teaches debouncing.
Reed Switch
A glass reed switch on a TinkerBlock board: two blades that a magnet pulls shut, from either pole, with no power needed to sense. It sits between VCC and SIGNAL with a 10 kΩ pull-down, so a magnet reads HIGH, and a red LED lights while it is closed. It draws nothing while open, and VCC must be your board's logic voltage.
Reflective Optical Sensor
A Vishay TCRT5000 on a TinkerBlock board: an infrared emitter that is always on and a phototransistor beside it, both looking out of the front. Infrared coming back pulls SIGNAL down from VCC through 4.7 kΩ, so white paper reads low and black tape or open air reads high. Analog only, best at 2.5 mm, and VCC goes to your board's logic voltage: 3V3, or 5V on an Uno.
RGB LED
A red, a green and a blue LED in one 5 mm package, each with its own 1 kΩ resistor and its own pin, joined at a common cathode. Three PWM pins mix any colour, and the handbook works out why three equal numbers are not white.
Rotary Potentiometer
A 10 kΩ linear potentiometer with a knob, wired as a voltage divider: SIGNAL gives 0 V to VCC as you turn. A red LED on the wiper glows as you turn up, and it bends the upper part of the reading: hard on 5 V, less on 3.3 V.
Steam Sensor
A TinkerBlock board that reads water on its surface: seven nested loops of bare gold, every other one on VCC, the rest held at 0 V by a 1 MΩ. Condensed steam, breath or a drop across the loops makes a divider, and SIGNAL rises from 0 V towards VCC. It is an analog output, it does not sense humidity in the air, and VCC must be your board's logic voltage.
Tilt Sensor
An SW-520D ball tilt switch on a TinkerBlock board: two steel balls in a brass can that close the switch when its lead end, the board's left edge, is the lower one. It sits between VCC and SIGNAL with a 10 kΩ pull-down and a 100 nF, so left edge down reads HIGH, and a red LED lights while it is closed. It draws nothing while open, reads nothing definite near level, and VCC must be your board's logic voltage.
Traffic Light
Red, yellow and green LEDs, each with its own 1 kΩ resistor and its own pin, sharing one GND: three digital outputs, and the first sketch that has to remember what it is doing.
TTP223 Touch Sensor
A 12 mm gold pad and a TTP223 touch chip on a TinkerBlock board: SIGNAL is HIGH while a finger is on the pad, through plastic or glass as well as bare, and LOW the rest of the time. Momentary and active-high in copper, with no jumper. SIGNAL is the chip's own output from VCC, so VCC goes to your board's logic supply, and the pad must be left alone for the half second after power-up.
Vibration Motor
A 10 mm coin vibration motor on a TinkerBlock board, switched by a MOSFET and fed from the board's own 3.3 V regulator. SIGNAL HIGH buzzes, LOW stops, analogWrite sets the strength. VCC only feeds the regulator, so 5V on VCC is safe beside a 3.3 V board, and 3V3 or 5V both give the motor about 3.3 V.
Voltmeter
A 30 kΩ and 7.5 kΩ divider behind a two-screw terminal: SIG is exactly one fifth of the input, so an analog pin can read up to 25 V on a 5 V board and about 15.5 V on a 3.3 V one. DC only, measured from GND.
XL LED
A 10 mm blue LED with its 150 Ω resistor already fitted, driven by one pin: the first output most people ever drive, and the light every later lesson uses to show that something happened.
DHT22 Temperature and Humidity Sensor
A DHT22 on a TinkerBlock board, the TK39: temperature from −40 to 80 °C to ±0.5 °C and humidity from 0 to 100 % to ±2 %, in tenths, on one data wire. The 10 kΩ pull-up is fitted, so it is three wires and one library. Feed VCC what your board's pins run at, and read it no more than once every two seconds.