I have been using the Arduino for a few years now and recently curiosity got the better of me with the excitement around the Raspberry Pi. I purchased my first Raspberry Pi and since my interest is more in line with interacting with the physical than just having a small computer, I needed a second project. Of course, the first project was to blink an LED!
For my second project, I decided to expand on the first. I still use output to blink an LED, but now I also use input to decide when to blink the LED. The way this project works is by sensing motion using a PIR, Passive Infra-Red, sensor.
Using the Adafruit Raspberry Pi Cobbler, here’s how I connected the Raspberry Pi GPIO pins to the breadboard and wired up the PIR sensor and LED.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.