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by Pete Prodoehl

Introduction

Connect a 270˚ Servo to a Bit Board and control it with a Pushbutton and code.

We'll explore using a momentary push button (and some code) to control the movement of a servo motor.

Video Overview

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  1. The 270 Degree Servo Motor has a 3-wire connector on the end that can plug directly into the pins on the back of the Bit Board. Make sure the Orange Wire is closest to the number 13 for the Pin 13 column. Then the Brown Wire should be closest to the micro:bit (in the - row) and the Red Wire will be in the middle (the +5v row).
    • The 270 Degree Servo Motor has a 3-wire connector on the end that can plug directly into the pins on the back of the Bit Board.

    • Make sure the Orange Wire is closest to the number 13 for the Pin 13 column.

    • Then the Brown Wire should be closest to the micro:bit (in the - row) and the Red Wire will be in the middle (the +5v row).

    • Connect the Button with Maker Tape, with one side to Pin 5 and the other to GND.

  2. If you've never used a micro:bit before you'll want to check out this guide:  Bit Board V2 Setup and Use
    • If you've never used a micro:bit before you'll want to check out this guide: Bit Board V2 Setup and Use

    • We're going to load the following code for our Servo Selector program: https://makecode.microbit.org/_Jg1e4DTfp...

    • When the button is pressed we'll repeat a loop 20 times where we set the angle of the servo to a random value between 30 and 150.

    • Remember that even though the servo is able to move 270 degrees we can only send values between 0 and 180, but we can shrink that scale as well to constrain it even more.

    • Once the code is loaded it should start running immediately, but the servo won't move until you press the button.

    • You can power the micro:bit via the USB cable you used to load the code, but now that we are using servos we recommend using a battery pack plugged into the Bit Board.

    • The Blue Pins on the Bit Board provide extra power (5 volts instead of 3 volts) by boosting the voltage coming from the battery pack. This helps improve servo performance, especially with multiple servos.

    • When the button is pressed the servo should make a number of moves and then on the 20th move it will stop moving.

    • This might be a good example for a game that needs to randomly select or point at something.

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Pete Prodoehl

Member since: 3/4/20

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