Beginning Arduino Programming

Project 1: RGB Blink

To really get started, we are going to use a nifty little component called a red-green-blue light emitting diode, or more simply an RGB LED. The RGB LED works off a similar principle as televisions and computer monitors. By using the same three colors of light that we are receptive to in our vision—specifically red, green, and blue—we can reproduce a vast array of colors through an additive color-mixing process. This form of color mixing should sound familiar from secondary school science, and is shown in the RGB color wheel in Figure 2-1. While it’s a little harder to make out in a black-and-white book like this one, if you use your imagination you’ll see that by combining two primary colors we end up with a secondary color. ...