Getting Started: Development Unit

Development
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#Getting Started
Welcome to the Arduboy community! This page will help you get started with the Arduboy Developer Kit and give you the resources you need to get started making awesome games of your own!

Arduboy is based on the Arduino Leonardo featuring the Atmel 32u4 microcontroller. It features an OLED Screen, 6 input buttons, a 2-channel piezo speaker, and a coin cell battery. USB is provided for programming.

##Requirements

  • Micro USB Cable (for programming or power)
    -or-
  • Battery: CR2016

##Software

##Sample Games and Library

##Programming with Arduboy:
To get started, try this quick-start guide.

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About 10 minutes late :P. But thanks very much. Got to get down the shop for a battery now

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Just remember, you can try powering it up with just the usb cable : )

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Thanks Ekem, that worked. Playing Araknoid for a bit :smiley:

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having Arduino IDE installed, where do i put the files i get from github so i can start Developing.
I am using windows 7.

thanks in advance.
-David M.

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just got mine, i went on codebender since Bates said hes teaming up with them. i found the library for Squario and downloaded it (.zip file) and added it onto the Arduino IDE. do i just wait for the library to compile then upload it?

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Actually for now they are advising us to avoid Codebender, because it appears that a few users have ruined their units by using Codebender to send its test program to the Arduboy. It’s unconfirmed but two different people had problems in the Arduboy IRC chat. See the note on the main page: http://www.arduboy.com/

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understood, i knew that there was something wrong when i tried to compile it via arduino IDE. im guessing that we should just stand by until the kickstarter is over to get a new library?

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on the IDE go to sketch --> include library —> add .zip library —>find .zip of breakout. then go into open —>libraries —> ardubreakout-master

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I would compile the sample game linked above (https://github.com/Arduboy/ArduBreakout), look at the source and work from there to make your own programs. Look at Arduboy.cpp for functions that draw to the screen.

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Has anybody uploaded anything to the Arduboy from a Windows 7 machine?

I installed the latest Arduino software (1.6.4) and drivers but the Arduboy shows up in “Other devices” in the Device Manager. Tried the steps for installing specific Arduino Leonardo drivers here (http://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/ArduinoLeonardoMicro?from=Guide.ArduinoLeonardo#toc10) but no luck.

Also tried re-installing the software and using a different USB port.

Edit: Just tried the same process on a Windows 8.1 machine and it worked without a problem.

Edit2: Got it working on Windows 7 by doing the following after installing the Arduino software:

  1. Open Control Panel
  2. Open Device Manager
  3. Right click “Arduino Leonardo” in the “Other devices” section
  4. Select “Update Driver Software…”
  5. Select “Browse my computer for driver software”
  6. Select “Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer”
  7. Select "Ports (COM & LPT)
  8. Click “Next”
  9. Select “Arduino LLC (www.arduino.cc)” to the left
  10. Select “Arduino Leonardo” to the right
  11. Click “Next” and then “Yes” to the dialog that appears

After that finished it showed up under the “Ports (COM & LPT)” section in the Device Manager

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ill do that soon. speaking of which do you know if Bates is going to make covers for the dev kits after the kickstarter ones?

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I doubt it. They aren’t even quite the same form factor I think, for example the dev ones take coin batteries and final units will be rechargeable lithium. It’d be a lot of effort to make cases for dev unit people.

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damn shame…oh well.

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here is a good question, since i just uploaded breakout and changed the title, how do i go about clearing the high scores?

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Well, I could tell you exactly how, but it would be best if you can work toward figuring it out yourself. :slight_smile: I hope you don’t think I’m being a jerk. It is better to understand what you are doing rather than just running some commands!

The high scores are saved in EEPROM, which is a special space that is remembered even when the Arduboy is turned off. It is only 1024 bytes large.

In ArduBreakout.ino, the function that does the high score writing is called enterHighScore. Specifically, the command you can search for that is doing it is EEPROM.write. If you decipher what the program is doing there, you can write 0’s there instead to clear the high score information.

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so, um. I downloaded arduino, and got breakout game into a sketch. I did all that just fine, then i remembered i’ve never done any coding ever, like never. I really want to learn this,making my own games has always been a dream of mine, but right now i am level Zero. Can you please point me in the direction of a worth while starting point?

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ok, i found the get started guide on arduino’s website… is the led on pin 13?

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For the Arduboy you are best going with a good C/C++ book and just trying to make heads and tails of the Arduboy code available to you. Currently there is only one game available to you, but fiddle about with the code, try make sense of it and work out what the code is doing. That’s the way I learnt to program personally, albeit with an easier programming language (C#).

I recommend using Visual Studio Express when trying to make sense of code. Right clicking on highlighted code likes method names when called allows you to see the entire method code by clicking one of the options in the right click menu (can’t remember the name of it exactly). Visual Studio is far more user friendly than other IDE’s and the best (I think) to get started on. But you won’t be able to upload the code directly from Visual Studio. If you edit the code you will need to save it and then reopen the ini file in arduino to upload it.