input
8 pages across tutorials, modules, pinouts and guides.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rotary Encoder
An EC11-type rotary encoder with a push switch in its shaft, its pull-ups, filter capacitors and pull-down already fitted. Two contacts a quarter of a cycle apart give the direction; the program keeps the count. Pushed in, BTN reads HIGH.
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.
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.