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Arduino Starter Kit - Video 9. Tweak the Arduino Logo

In this video tutorial, Massimo Banzi shows us how to change the colour of the Arduino Logo on your laptop, using a potentiometer on the Arduino board. The purpose of this tutorial is to learn how to control an application by interacting with an Arduino connected to the computer.
 
The circuit this time is minimal: just one potentiometer connected to the Arduino board. The real complexity lies in the code, which handles the communication between the Arduino and a desktop application.
For this tutorial we will need a new piece of software called Processing. Fortunately we are already familiar with it, as the Arduino IDE is based directly on the Processing IDE. Processing is very effective for visualization and also supports a library to communicate via serial communication using the USB port. 

We use Processing to display the Arduino logo and to set up communication with the Arduino board. The Arduino board reads the value from the potentiometer, sends it over to Processing on the desktop via the USB cable, where the software uses it to change the colour of the logo.

This technique opens up new possibilities: there is a lot of software that can read data via serial communication, and this allows us to control the software via an external device based on Arduino. 

You can find the previous tutorials here and subscribe to the upcoming Arduino video tutorials. As Massimo always says: build it, hack it and share it on the internet, because Arduino is you.

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