Episode

The Maker Show: Episode 3 - Arduino and Servos

Now that Brian Sherwin showed you how to blink an LED and David Crook discussed electronics, let's turn to Servo Motors and Pulse Width Modulation!

In this episode of The Maker Show, DC Micro Servos will be discussed. These tiny controllers are inexpensive, cost less than a cup of coffee at Starbucks, and pack a powerful punch with 1.54 Kg-cm of torque, and weight in with a mass of 8.6 grams!

Servo Motors were first conceived by Nikolai Tesla who designed the AC types of Servo Motors. He used an ingenious rotary sensor design that was used to create precision gyro systems that took humans to the moon!

The servo motor will be a nice addition to your blinking LED that you created in the last show. With a little work, you could use a potentiometer to turn the servo motor.

The show also takes to the beach where the design was tested successfully in the California surf.

Here is the timeline, and there is a quiz at the end of the video, really:

[00:00] - Introduction

[01:40] - Servo Motors

[02:45] - Motors & Servos

[06:20] - Servo Communications using PWM

[07:47] - Code the Servo!

[08:48] - Electrical and Mechanical considerations, important for pure computer scientists!

[11:28] - Where to use Servo Motors

[13:04] - Wiring the Arduino

[15:14] - Conclusion

The servo I used was supplied with the Grove Shield kit and I purchased it through Amazon, the price of the Grove Shield kit might seem expensive, but I have made extensive use of the kit to illustrate how IOT and Azure works. You can also use Arduino UNO if you use the Grove shield. If you don't use the Grove Shield than this lab will work with any Arduino, Launchpad or Particle Photon.

Have fun.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below and let us know what topics you'd like to see covered in future episodes of The Maker Show. Bookmark The Maker Show to come back to the main show page.