Potentiometers are important components for unlocking more functionality from your projects. It’s a variable resistor whose resistance depends on the position of the knob. You can use them to adjust the volume of a speaker, brightness of an LED, speed of a motor and so much more. We’ll also begin using the Arduino IDE Serial Monitor to read values coming from our potentiometer. We often need to see real-time readings from sensors and other components that interact with the environment and the Serial Monitor is an easy way to do this right in the Arduino software. But perhaps more important, the serial monitor is a valuable troubleshooting tool for both components and code. After reading values, we’re going to turn it around and allow users to control what actions the Arduino performs with user input in the Serial Monitor.

Buzzers can be used in your projects to sound alarms, add sound effects and even play music! We’ll start with active buzzers which are the easiest to use because all you have to do is apply 5V to get it to go off – very much like the LEDs we’ve been working with. Then we’ll move on to passive buzzers which give you cleaner and better tone control that’s perfect for sound effects and songs.

It’s time to put some motion into our projects! Servos are great for acting as levers, pulls, robot arms, gauge indicators and anything that needs 180 degrees of rotational movement. In order to start using servos, we’re going to learn about libraries, how to incorporate them into your code and create different movements. Then we’ll build a few projects integrating our servo with other components to perform different actions.

The first thing that comes to mind when you think of joysticks is gaming. Although these components can be used to create a variety of games with your Arduino, they’re also useful for controlling robots, motors and servos. Joysticks are composed of 2 potentiometers (one that changes with up and down movements and another for left to right movements) and an off/on switch that is activated by pushing the knob down. We’ll learn to read the values coming from our joystick and then use them to perform a variety of actions like changing the brightness and colors of LEDs and controlling servos and motors.

The popular DHT11 humidity and temperature sensor gives you two functionalities in one! It’s relatively simple to use but we’ll have to download and install an external library. These sensors are an essential part of weather station projects and when paired with an LCD, you can read values on the go! We’ll also connect other components that will perform different activities based on changes in temperature and humidity.

Now that you know how to connect a variety of components to your Arduino, you’ll be inspired to build larger and more complex projects. But what happens if you don’t have enough pins for your creation? That’s where shift registers are helpful. They only require 3 pins on your Arduino and you get 8 outputs – not a bad deal! We’ll be working with the 74HC595, or 595 for short, one of the most popular ones for electronics projects.

Using remote controls with your Arduino projects is a great way to control robots, lights, relays and more – wirelessly. We’re going to learn how infrared remotes send information to the Arduino and then we’ll use that information to trigger different actions and control other devices.