Basic Electronics on BatSTEM Academy

L2: The LED diode

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The LED diode

What you will learn in this lesson

In this lesson we will cover:

What an LED or light-emitting diode is and how it works.
Protection resistor. What it is and why it’s necessary.
Prototype board. How it works and how we can use it to easily build circuits.

Prerequisites

To follow this lesson, you must have completed Lesson 1: My First Project. Additionally, the theoretical explanation will mention the concepts of voltage, current, and resistance, although it is not necessary to understand them in depth to complete the lesson.

L3: The LED Diode (2)

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The LED Diode (2)

What you will learn in this lesson

In this lesson, we will cover:

Controlling an external LED from the development board.
GPIO pins: What they are and what we can use them for.

Prerequisites

To follow this lesson, you should have already completed Lesson 1: My first project and Lesson 2: The LED diode, as we will combine concepts from both to learn how to control an external LED connected to our development board.

P1: The traffic light

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The traffic light

What you will review in this project

In this project, we will review:

Connection between the development board and the computer.
Use of the BatSTEM Cloud development environment.
Control of external LEDs from the development board.
LED control blocks and wait blocks.

Prerequisites

This project applies the concepts learned in the lessons L1: My first project, L2: The LED diode and L3: The LED diode (2).

L4: Variable-brightness LED

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Variable-brightness LED

What you will learn in this lesson

In this lesson, we will cover:

Controlling the brightness of an external LED from the development board.
PWM outputs: what they are and what they are used for.

Prerequisites

To follow this lesson, you should have already completed Lesson 1: My first project, Lesson 2: The LED diode and Lesson 3: The LED diode (2). In this lesson, we will use the same type of circuit as in the previous lesson, but we will learn to control the LED using more values than just on and off.

L5: The RGB LED

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The RGB LED

What you will learn in this lesson

In this lesson, we will cover:

What an RGB LED is and how it works.
Additive colour mixing.
Controlling the LED’s colour and brightness from the development board.

Prerequisites

To follow this lesson, you should have already completed Lesson 1: My first project, Lesson 2: The LED diode, Lesson 3: The LED diode (2) and Lesson 4: Variable-brightness LED. In this lesson, we will use three outputs on the board to control the three colours of a single component.

L6: The serial port

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The serial port

What you will learn in this lesson

In this lesson, we will cover:

What a serial communication port is.
How to use it to send information to the development board and receive information from it.
How to use it to monitor and debug our programs.
Using variables.

Prerequisites

To follow this lesson, you should have already completed Lesson 1: My first project, Lesson 2: The LED diode, Lesson 3: The LED diode (2), Lesson 4: Variable-brightness LED and Lesson 5: The RGB LED. In this lesson, we will not add a new electronic component: we will learn to communicate with the board from the computer.

L7: The pushbutton

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The pushbutton

What you will learn in this lesson

In this lesson, we will cover:

What a pushbutton is and how it works.
The difference between input and output devices.
Making decisions in our programs: the “if…do…else” block.
Reading the state of a pushbutton from our program to control an LED.

Prerequisites

To follow this lesson, you should be familiar with the basic LED circuit covered in Lesson 1: My first project, Lesson 2: The LED diode and Lesson 3: The LED diode (2).

P2: Control the RGB LED from your computer

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Control the RGB LED from your computer

What you will review in this project

In this project, we will combine what we have learned in previous lessons:

Controlling the red, green and blue channels of an RGB LED.
Receiving and sending text through the COM port.
Using a variable to store a message.
Using conditions to decide what to do based on the command received.

Prerequisites

This project puts into practice the concepts learned in L4: Variable-brightness LED, L5: The RGB LED, L6: The serial port and L7: The pushbutton.

L8: The pushbutton (2)

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The pushbutton (2)

What you will learn in this lesson

In this lesson, we will cover:

What an interrupt is.
The difference between polling in the main loop and reacting to an event.
Making a pushbutton execute blocks when its state changes.
Using simple interrupts to control an LED.
Optionally, using variables to count button presses.

Prerequisites

To follow this lesson, you should have completed Lesson 1: My first project, Lesson 2: The LED diode, Lesson 3: The LED diode (2) and Lesson 7: The pushbutton.

L9: The timer

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The timer

What you will learn in this lesson

In this lesson, we will cover:

What a timer is.
The difference between waiting in the main loop and using a periodic event.
Executing blocks at regular intervals.
Enabling and disabling a timer.
Using variables to remember the state between one timer event and the next.

Prerequisites

To follow this lesson, you should have completed Lesson 1: My first project, Lesson 3: The LED diode (2), Lesson 6: The serial port and Lesson 8: The pushbutton (2).

P3: Interactive traffic light

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Interactive traffic light

What you will review in this project

In this project, we will combine what we have learned in the three previous lessons:

Configuring a pushbutton and reading its state.
Events and interrupts when pressing and releasing a button.
Using a timer to execute a periodic task.
Using variables to remember the current state.

Prerequisites

This project puts into practice the concepts learned in L7: The pushbutton, L8: The pushbutton (2) and L9: The timer.