Discovering the POSITIVE and NEGATIVE pins of the Arduino

Our first Arduino project is simply about discovering how to use its power. For now, we’ll use the Arduino much like a battery—we won’t be sending any messages or instructions to it YET!

The Arduino has positive and negative power pins that we can use to provide power to our components.

These power pins are always on. Unlike some of the other Arduino pins, you cannot switch them on and off using code. They continuously provide power whenever the Arduino is connected to a power source.

Let’s start by exploring these pins and seeing what we can power with them!

You will now perform this project yourself.

But before we start, you might have noticed the error in the video. The LED is connected the wrong way around with the long leg towards the NEGATIVE (or Ground) rail. The long leg should always be connected to the POSITIVE rail like the picture below.

Aim of this project:

• We want to use the positive and negative pins of the Arduino like a battery power source.

Ingredients for this project:

• Arduino and USB cable (plugged into computer)
• Otherwise a 9V battery and connector
• Breadboard
• LED 220 ohm resistor
• wires