"Building a Unique LED Circuit: Combining Circuits, Coding Challenges, and Lessons Learned"

This week in class, the exciting challenge was to utilize two or more circuits and merge them into something completely different. For such a project, one needed to learn how to modify pre existing circuit designs and combine them in some new way. I decided to incorporate circuits 2, 3, and 4 into one coherent circuit that also includes an LED sequence controlled by a potentiometer and an RGB LED.

This circuit was possible only because I followed the guide quite closely in the Viltros kit instruction book, explaining which wire needed to connect with which pin and through which everything would get the right voltage. Still, I had to adjust it too, moving some of the pieces onto other parts of the breadboard so that no area would end up crowded and would fit all the connections that needed to be made. Every time I moved any one component, I double-checked that the wiring was still correct; also to make sure power flowed accordingly with both the LEDs and potentiometer.

After positioning and wiring everything, I had to write the code that allowed the potentiometer to control both the speed of the LED sequence and the color of the RGB LED. In this step, I gathered pieces from each of the respective guides for the circuits involved and combined them into one sketch. It took some time to get the coding right. It took a while to make all the necessary changes, as I carefully had to integrate each piece of code into the other while avoiding any form of conflicts and errors.

I had a few minor slip ups that tripped me up at the beginning but after some troubleshooting I got it working. After finally getting everything connected and running the code, I was excited to see the LEDs and potentiometer interact as planned. Turning the potentiometer changed the speed of the sequence in the LEDs as it should and as I turned the potentiometer a little further, the RGB LED started color cycling too!

Circuits Combined:

Challenges

But one thing didn't go as expected: no matter what I did, in no instance would the red color light on in the RGB LED. The blues and greens were perfect; the red color simply wouldn't be seen. Rewire and rewire, even changed the LED itself, but minor changes visible in code did nothing different - no red light came out.This was frustrating, but I decided to move forward with the project as-is. Even without the red, I'm really proud of how it all did work. This also taught me that sometimes, when troubleshooting, there sometimes just won't be a quick fix - and that's okay; a few imperfections will appear in a learning project.Of course, there were some challenges. Aside from the RGB LED not displaying red, it was also tricky to keep track of all the connections as I moved components around. It wasn't easy to count each and then recount to make sure I had it right after connecting all, but it saved many possible oversights that could have caused problems later on.

Reflection

That said, when all else fell into place, what a great sense of accomplishment. This is my first time combining any circuits from scratch, and being able to see my combined circuit light up and respond to the potentiometer felt somehow minor in its own victory. I am proud of the adjustments I made in tweaking the positioning of components and troubleshooting the wiring that allowed things to run smoothly overall. I am very proud with how this project turned out, even considering the challenge with the RGB LED. I feel more confident now in my ability to combine circuits and customize code to create unique projects, and I am excited to keep experimenting. I am also looking forward to learning more about troubleshooting, and figuring out why the red color didn't show up. Thanks for following along with my build!