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Electronic Circuit Basics With TinkerCAD
Electronic Circuit Basics With TinkerCAD
Electricity
And
Coding
With
Tinkercad
Build virtual circuits
Read my [March 15th issue] where I demonstrate how to use Tinkercad for
3D modeling. The issue has instructions for creating student accounts and
managing those accounts through Tinkercad.
Alex Reyes
Table of Contents
Electronics and coding for science…………………………………….1
Closed Circuit with An LED …………………………………………….. 4
The TinkerCad Pushbutton …………………………………………….10
An LED Circuit with A Push Button …………………………………..12
Troubleshooting the Switch …………………………………………… 14
The Solution ..........................................................................................14
can be programmed to manipulate Go to the left side of the page after logging
electronic components like LED lights and in and click the circuits menu option.
c o m p o n e n t s . F i n d t h e B re a d b o a rd
component and click on it once.
The Breadboard has a grid of thirty by ten
holes in the main area. The rows are
numbered 1 to 30 and the columns are
labeled with the letters A through J. The
columns A through E are separated from
columns F through J by a piece of plastic.
The edges of the board contain two hole beneath will be identified with a red
columns with the same number of rows. square and a black border. The other holes
These columns have negative and positive will be identified with green circles. These
symbols. These columns and holes are green circles indicate that each hole in the
used for the power supply. The components row is connected to each other hole in the
in the center part of the board will tap into row. There is a wire linking any connection
these columns to draw electric current.
within the same row. We will use this linking
to help develop connect components.
that all these holes are joined and can be panel is located on the right side of the
used to connect the negative end of wires page. Click the color selector.
or components.
button.
positive end of our battery pack to the other Click and drag the end of the wire to the
end of the breadboard. Click the positive other side of the breadboard and connect it
terminal wire.
to the positive side of the rail.
Move the mouse pointer to the end of the Connect a jumper wire from the positive rail
wire that is connected to the breadboard. to the row that matches the opposite side
The connection point of the wire will of the button.
The Solution
I really did make this mistake and it took me
Move the LED so the anode is connected to
a couple of minutes to realize what I had
the push button terminal. This means
done. I was going to start all over again but I
moving the LED one row up to row 2.
Connect the negative and positive battery
terminals to the corresponding holes on the
Place the LED in the upper half of the breadboard. Don’t forget to change the
breadboard and leave space for jumper jumper wire colors.
wires.
Connect a jumper wire from the positive rail Click the “Start Simulation” button.
Connect jumper wires to connect the The LED will light and remain lit until we
positive row of the button to the row that click the switch again to move the
connects the LED Anode. Remember that Slideswitch or stop the simulation. Click the
the Anode of an LED must be connected to switch to open the circuit and turn the LED
the positive wire. Connect the Cathode side OFF.
Stop the simulation so we can rewire the The Cathode side of the LED needs to be
switch.
connected to the negative side of the
switch to close the circuit when the switch
is flipped. Click once on the jumper wire for
the LED Cathode.
Connect the wire to the row that connects The circuit is open and the light is not
the right side of the switch lead.
receive current or voltage.
Press the “Start Simulation” button. Notice We can use one side or the other of the
the position of the switch in our circuit and Switch to complete a circuit. We cannot use
the status of the LED light. Changing the both sides of this switch at the same time.
side that the wires connect to the Switch Try connecting a jumper wire to both sides
also changes the side that the Switch must of the switch and see what happens.
You will find that the LED will not light at all.
Create a new circuit. Return to the main Go to the battery options panel and change
Tinkercad Circuit page by clicking the the battery count from one to four.
Click on the battery pack so it is selected Change the color of the wires so they are
and click the rotate button so the terminals black for negative and red for positive.
Click the Components button to open the We will be using this setup to learn about
components panel.
current flow across a resistor. While the
resistor is still selected we can see that the
resistance of this resistor is measured at 1
Kilo-Ohm. The symbol next to the letter k is
the Greek letter Omega(Ω). The Omega
symbol is used because the “Om” in
Omega sounds similar to Ohm. One Kilo-
Ohm is 1000 Ohms.
micro-ohms. In our circuits we will be using Click on the letter “V” on the meter. The
Ohms, milli-ohms and kilo-ohms.
meter indicates that there is 6 volts going
through the circuit.
resistor.
between models and real world This process works even if we change the
applications.
value of the voltage. Select the battery pack
To understand the meaning of the colors of and change the number of batteries from 4
these bands we need to have access to a to 3.
Project Properties
It’s a good idea to keep track of our A menu will open with several options. The
projects in TinkerCad. Throughout these menu options include Properties, Duplicate,
lessons we will be creating a variety of Move to Project…, and Delete. Click the
projects and many of them will look very Properties option.
In the properties box we can choose to one on public domain, and one on Creative
include Tags. Tags in TinkerCad are like Commons. As an extension you might have
categories. These categories can be useful students debate the merits of each form of
when organizing and searching projects. copyright. Have students write which
The other options include privacy settings. license they will choose for their projects
Projects are private, meaning they can only and why they made that choice. Think about
be viewed by the creator unless made why only these two licenses are available
public. When they are public then anyone when sharing.
Name the design “Resistor and LED
circuit”. Click the Save Changes button.
design opens.
system. This can be related to the plant To determine the resistor, we need to know
cycle, life cycle and environmental cycle.
the voltage being applied to the LED and
the tolerances for the LED. These
tolerances are usually supplied when LEDs
C re a t e a n e w c i rc u i t a n d p l a c e a
breadboard onto the canvas. Place one
LED on the Breadboard and place two jump
wires. Make sure to connect the anode wire
to the positive lead and the cathode wire to
the negative lead.
transistor or capacitor.
This isn’t enough to turn on the LED. We
need to do a few more things. Click on the
The solid rectangle on the board with
Code Editor button.
Blinking LED
The code we used in the previous example the simulation. The LED will turn on and off
turned the Arduino into a glorified switch. but the OFF state is too short. Arduino is a
We can do so much more with Arduino and very simple computer but it is still very fast
in this lesson we will take a closer look at and processes our instructions in fractions
what can be done with code and the same of a second. We need to instruct the code
LED.
to slow things down so we have time to see
the changes.
Digital Maestro
Magazine
Page 43 • Digital Mæstro Magazine • digitalmaestro.org