Week 8: Phys Comp – DC MotorS!

Yes, it’s exciting. We’re making stuff move. Sort of.

So, I made a little video about my experience with the DC motor lab, which you can watch right now or keep reading while I tell you something about it first.

Initially, I had some trouble figuring out how to get the breadboard set up correctly. I noticed that the diagram uses a 9V pin on the Arduino, which my Arduino doesn’t have. So, I hooked up one end of my wire to the second ground pin, assuming that the photo was not correct. Then, I put the other end of the wire into the breadboard, across from the power on the DC motor, assuming that that’s what was correct.

Well, I was wrong about something because the above wasn’t working. So I tried to simply light up an LED just to make sure my wires were correct. The LED came on, so I figured I was right about something and just started doubting the diagram again. Eventually, someone suggested I plug the power directly into the breadboard – of course, since coming from ground, it wouldn’t make sense anyway – and then the motor came on.

After that, I worked on the next part of the lab, using the potentiometer to adjust the motor. I got that part to work too. Pretty cool. I’m not so good with gears, yet, which is why I’m trying to adjust the rotating bar.

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