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Tutorial on S4A: How to control an Arduino uno board with Scratch - Scratch for Arduino

Hi everyone,

Welcome for a new tutorial on STEM education.

I think that most of you are familiar with arduino boards and also how to program them. If no, this may be a good way to learn how to program those arduino boards.

We'll see today how to program an arduino board with ''S4A'' which means Scratch for Arduino". It uses Scratch which is a blocky drap and drop language used to teach kids how to program, make vieo game and interact with a computer.

Download S4A

To start with S4A, we need to download the software on "S4A.cat". Then go the dowlnoad tab to dowload "S4A".

Install S4A

When done, you need to install the software on your computer.

If not installed on your computer yet, you also need to install the "Arduino Sotware" available on ''Aruino.cc''. So why do we use S4A? Because we need to upload a firmware on your Arduino Uno board to have your board to work with S4A. There is the link: Firmware for Arduino board and S4A

When done, you can now open S4A. The interface below should appear on your computer.

Make a diode blink with Scratch for Arduino "S4A"

To make a diode blink which is located on the number 13 of all arduino uno boards, we will use the drag and drop method to program the arduino uno board.

The purpose is to make it blink every second, so we use the following program that consist to:

Turn on the diode
Wait 1 second
Turn off the diode
Wait 1 second
And repeat the program from the beginning

Upload it to your Arduino uno board and you should see your diode blink. That's all for today. More tutorials on S4A are to come (How to control a servomotor, how to control a dc motor, etc).

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