ARDUINO STREET TRAFFIC LIGHT -

BREADBOARD EDITION
By allhandsactive in TechnologyArduino
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Introduction: Arduino Street Traffic Light -

Breadboard Edition

By allhandsactiveAll Hands Active MakerspaceFollowMore by

the author:

About: Dream It! Build It! Teach It! AHA is a community workspace with shared tools and knowledge
for Coders to Crafters to Makers to Hackers. We are among the oldest continually operating
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Build a simple Arduino powered Traffic Light with us! This instructable
is meant to walk you through almost every step, but there are a few
assumptions. Read over the intro and the first step to make sure you
are fully prepared! This is the breadboard version, a more realistic
traffic light will be generated soon. Please leave comments - tell us
if things are confusing!

Supplies Needed:
1 x Computer with Internet Access
1 x Arduino Uno
1 x USB A/B Cable for connecting the Arduino to your PC
1 x Breadboard (Half-Size, with Voltage Rails)
1 x Red LED
1 x Yellow LED
1 x Green LED
3 x 100 Ohm Resistors (Brown Black Brown)
4 x Breadboard Wires (22 AWG, approx. 6+ inches in length)

Other Helpful Things:

- Good lighting
- A clean workspace
- An hour of your time
- Someone awesome to work with

Missing Something?
- Check out hackerspaces.org for a local place for tools, supplies, etc.
- Near Ann Arbor, MI? We have all the supplies needed to do this
instructable at our hackerspace "All Hands Active"
- Radioshack, AdaFruit, SparkFun, Jameco, are just a few resources
that will have all the needed items.

You wanted a smarter traffic light?

- That's our next instructable, stay tuned!
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Step 1: Set Up the Arduino Environment
This instructable makes many assumptions! Some people like to call
these "prerequisites". In order to make sure you get the most out of
this instructable, you should have:
- The Arduino Software downloaded and installed on your computer.
- Plugged in and tested your Arduino by following the installation
guide appropriate for your computer.
- Approximately one hour of time to spare, and a nice clean
workspace with plenty of lighting.

Mission Complete? Continue on!

Image Source: The Getting Started w/Arduino Guide

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Step 2: Wire Your Green LED

2 More Images

Situate your Arduino on the left, and your breadboard on the right! If
you have not used a breadboard before, it's a bit like playing
Battleship. If you haven't played Battleship, that's okay : )

For this step, you will need:

1 x Arduino Uno
1 x Breadboard (Preferably Half-Size with Voltage Rails)
1 x 100 Ohm Resistor (Brown Black Brown)
2 x Breadboard or Jumper Wires (22 awg approx. 6" long)
1 x Green LED

Onward!
Breadoards are great, and they come in all shapes and sizes. They
make it easy for you to prototype an electrical circuit without having to
solder connections together. Don't worry if yours is a little different. If it
comes with voltage rails, then it should be pretty easy to follow along.
If it doesn't, you will have to figure out an alternate way to supply
power.

Voltage rails are the two columns that run along the left and right sides
of the breadboard pictured above. These are used to make it easier to
bring power to various points throughout your breadboard. We will
ground all of our connections along the right, or "blue" labeled voltage
rail. In the step above, w connect a black wire running from the
"GND" pin of the Arduino, to a voltage rail..

Digital, Analog The Arduino has 14 Digital pins, and 6 Analog pins. A
Digital pin can operate in two ways: On, also known as "HIGH", and
Off, otherwise known as "LOW". When a Digital Pin is set to On, 5
volts of electricity are running through it. When it's set to Off, no
voltage runs through it. This will make it easy for us to turn an LED on
or off. These pins are represented as "DIGITAL", pins 0 through 13 at
the top right of the Arduino pictured above.

Analog pins can operate differently. Instead of being limited to on or

off, they can read a range of values from between 0 Volts and 5 Volts,
but they convert "volts" into whole numbers, specifically 0 through
1023. For example: 0 = 0 Volts, 512 = ~2.5 volts, and 1023 would
mean 5 volts. These pins are represented as "ANALOG IN", pins 0
through 5 at the bottom right of the Arduino pictured above.

Resistors do exactly as they say, they resist! But what? Electrons! Too
much power, or current and we can ruin our LED, so we include a
resistor in line with it. We measure resistance in units called "Ohms".
The resistor we are using provides 100 Ohms of resistance. The
colored strips Brown (1), Black (0), Brown (add 1 more 0), are how we
identify what the value of our resistor is.

Follow the images to complete this step, then move on to the next
step to get your LED turned on!
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Step 3: Turn on Your Green LED

You will write your code in two basic sections: the "setup" section and
the "loop" section. These sections are known as functions. We will
learn more about what a function is later on!

The Setup function runs once when the arduino is turned on.
The Loop function runs continuously after the setup function runs
once.

For you to turn on your LED, two things must happen.

First, you must tell the pin that you plugged in your LED to (in this
case, PIN 3) to be in OUTPUT mode. This tells the pin that you're
going to send data out to it. You can set your pin to be in output mode
using the pinMode function.

Second, you must tell the pin to be in HIGH mode. HIGH mode sends
a high electrical signal through the pin. LOW mode sends a low
electrical signal. You can set your pin on high mode by using
the digitalWrite function.
// basic functions
voidsetup()
{
// setup LED modes
// we're specifying that we're going to send information to this LED
pinMode(3, OUTPUT);
}

voidloop()
{
// High turns things on
digitalWrite(3, HIGH);
}

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Step 4: Use a Variable

In the previous step, we wrote the following line of

code: pinMode(3, OUTPUT);
Once we start adding more LEDs, we're going to have lots of pin
numbers everywhere. Keeping track of these pin numbers will become
more and more annoying and hard. BUT! Fear not! Programming
languages offer a wonderful solution: Variables

Variables allow you to give names to things. There are lots of different
types of variables.

Today we're going to learn about a number variable called

an int (short for integer). An intcan be any whole number from -
32,768 to 32,767.

Variables have 3 properties: type, name, and value.

For instance: int GREEN = 3; has a type of int, a name of GREEN, and a
value of 3.

A variable is used in place of a value.

Anywhere you want to use a "3," you can now write "GREEN."

* Remember: You have to make a variable before you can use it!
* Variables exist in different areas known as scopes. A scope is the
area between a starting curly bracket { and its matching ending curly
bracket }. In our case, we're going to declare the variables all at the
top of the code. These variables are known as global variables.
A global variable can be used anywhere in the document.
Example:
// variables
int GREEN = 3;

// basic functions
voidsetup()
{
// setup LED modes
// we're specifying that we're going to send information to this LED
pinMode(GREEN, OUTPUT);
}

voidloop()
{
// High turns things on
digitalWrite(1, HIGH);
}

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Step 5: Make Your LED Blink!

The Arduino library provides another useful little function called delay.
The delay function takes in the length of the delay -- an int (integer)
value in milliseconds.

Combining the delay function with the loop function allows us to

create a blinking effect with the LED.

We will do this by setting a delay of 1 second (1000 milliseconds)

between the LED being on (HIGH) and the LED being off (LOW).

We're going to use an int variable named DELAY so that we can

change its value without having to type in numbers over and over
everywhere.

Example:
// variables
int GREEN = 3;
int DELAY = 1000;

// basic functions
voidsetup()
{
// setup LED modes
// we're specifying that we're going to send information to this LED
pinMode(GREEN, OUTPUT);
}

voidloop()
{
// High turns things on
digitalWrite(GREEN, HIGH);
delay(DELAY);
// low turns things off
digitalWrite(GREEN, LOW);

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Step 6: Wire Your Yellow LED!

In this step we will be adding a second LED. You will be 2/3rds of the
way to having a completed Traffic Signal!
For this step, you will need:
1 x 100 Ohm Resistor (Brown Black Brown)
1 x Breadboard or Jumper Wires (22 awg, approx. 6" in length)
1 x Yellow LED
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Step 7: Make Both LEDs Blink!

You want to set up your lights so that instead of just blinking on and
off your Green LED, you now switch between LEDs.

For this step, repeat the same steps as the step to set up the Green
LED.

* Remember to set both LEDs to OUTPUT mode!

* Remember to turn off one LED when the other one is on!

Can you set it up so that your Green LED stays on for 5 seconds and
your Yellow LED for only 2 seconds?

Example:
// variables
int GREEN = 3;
int YELLOW = 4;
int DELAY_GREEN = 1000;
int DELAY_YELLOW = 1000;

// basic functions
voidsetup()
{
 // setup LED modes
// we're specifying that we're going to send information to this LED
pinMode(GREEN, OUTPUT);
pinMode(YELLOW, OUTPUT);
}

voidloop()
{
// High turns things on
// Low turns things off
digitalWrite(GREEN, HIGH);
digitalWrite(YELLOW, LOW);
// how long we want the green led on
delay(DELAY_GREEN);

digitalWrite(GREEN, LOW);
digitalWrite(YELLOW, HIGH);
// how long we want the yellow led on
delay(DELAY_YELLOW);
}

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Step 8: Wire Your Red LED!

We'll be wiring up your final LED in this step. Hopefully you have a
good idea at this point how we'll go about doing this! Mouse-over the
caption box in the image for details on where to connect everything.

For this step, you will need:

1 x 100 Ohm Resistor (Brown Black Brown)
1 x Breadboard or Jumper Wires (22 awg)
1 x Red LED
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Step 9: Make All the Lights GO!

Now set it up so that your lights go from Green --> Yellow --> Red!

For this step, set up the Red LED the same way as the Yellow LED.

* Remember to all LEDs to OUTPUT mode!

* Remember to turn off two LEDs when one is on!

Can you set it up so that your Green LED stays on for 5 seconds and
your Yellow LED for 2 seconds and then your Red LED for 5
seconds?

Example:
// variables
int GREEN = 3;
int YELLOW = 4;
int RED = 5;
int DELAY_GREEN = 1000;
int DELAY_YELLOW = 1000;
int DELAY_RED = 1000;

// basic functions
voidsetup()
{
// setup LED modes
// we're specifying that we're going to send information to this LED
pinMode(GREEN, OUTPUT);
pinMode(YELLOW, OUTPUT);
pinMode(RED, OUTPUT);
}

voidloop()
{
// High turns things on
// Low turns things off
digitalWrite(GREEN, HIGH);
digitalWrite(YELLOW, LOW);
digitalWrite(RED, LOW);
// how long we want the green led on
delay(DELAY_GREEN);

digitalWrite(GREEN, LOW);
digitalWrite(YELLOW, HIGH);
digitalWrite(RED, LOW);
// how long we want the yellow led on
delay(DELAY_YELLOW);

digitalWrite(GREEN, LOW);
digitalWrite(YELLOW, LOW);
digitalWrite(RED, HIGH);
// how long we want the red led on
delay(DELAY_RED);
}

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Step 10: Use Functions!

In the previous step, we wrote the following lines of code:

digitalWrite(GREEN, HIGH);

digitalWrite(YELLOW, LOW);

digitalWrite(RED, LOW);

Once we start having more complex programs, we're going to have

lots of steps. Putting a space between steps makes the program a
little more readable; using Functions make the program even more
readable.

Functions allow you to group instructions. Functions have 3 main

parts. Input, instructions, and output!

Today we're going to focus on just the grouping of instructions!

Functions are just like variables. Once your create them, you can
replace the sets of instructions you put into the function in the rest of
your program.

Turning this set of instructions:

void loop()

digitalWrite(GREEN, HIGH);

digitalWrite(YELLOW, LOW);

digitalWrite(RED, LOW);

Into this:
void loop()

green_light();

void green_light()
{

digitalWrite(GREEN, HIGH);

digitalWrite(YELLOW, LOW);

digitalWrite(RED, LOW);

A function is used in place of instructions.

Anywhere you want to make a green light, you can now

write green_light(); .

* Remember: You have to make a variable before you can use it!
* Variables exist in different areas known as scopes. A scope is the
area between a starting curly bracket { and its matching ending curly
bracket }. In our case, we're going to declare the variables all at the
top of the code. These variables are known as global variables.
A global variable can be used anywhere in the document.

Example:

// variables

int GREEN = 2;

int YELLOW = 3;

int RED = 4;

int DELAY_GREEN = 5000;

int DELAY_YELLOW = 2000;

int DELAY_RED = 5000;

// basic functions

voidsetup()

// setup LED modesv // we're specifying that we're that

// we're going to send information to this LED

pinMode(GREEN, OUTPUT);

pinMode(YELLOW, OUTPUT);

pinMode(RED, OUTPUT);

voidloop()

green_light();

delay(DELAY_GREEN);

// code to make a yellow light

delay(DELAY_YELLOW);

// code to make a red light

delay(DELAY_RED);

void green_light()

digitalWrite(GREEN, HIGH);
 digitalWrite(YELLOW, LOW);

digitalWrite(RED, LOW);

void yellow_light()

// your code here

void red_light()

// your code here

//

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Step 11: Sending and Receiving Information!
The steps following this will enable communication to and from our
Traffic Light! The code for this part is not yet accessible, but feel free
to adventure on!
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Step 12: Adding an Infrared LED
An infrared (IR) LED functions just like a normal LED, but humans are
typically unable to see light emitted from these. We will be using an IR
LED to communicate to our line following vehicle whether or not the
Traffic Light is Red or Green. If the Traffic Light is Red, then the IR
Light will also be on.

Mouse-over the caption box in the image for details on where to

connect everything.

For this step, you will need:

1 x 100 Ohm Resistor (Brown Black Brown)
1 x Breadboard or Jumper Wires (22 awg)
1 x IR LED
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Step 13: Adding an IR Receiver

An infrared receiver detects infrared light! We will use it to detect the

presence of our line following vehicle. This will allow us to either
decrease the amount of time the Traffic Light is Red, or increase the
time the Traffic Light is green..

Mouse-over the caption box in the image for details on where to

connect everything.
For this step, you will need:
1 x 10k Ohm Resistor (Brown Black Orange)
3 x Breadboard or Jumper Wires (22 awg)
1 x IR Receiver