Getting Started with Netduino

Chapter 3. First Projects

Microcontroller boards like Netduino live in a realm that bridges software and electronic hardware. The Netduino itself is the bridge, and your Netduino app determines how software and hardware talk to each other. This means that one of the fundamental activities you’ll engage in is signaling: your app must send signals over digital outputs and receive signals on digital inputs.

These digital signals are represented in your app’s code as binary 1s and 0s. Usually, 1s are represented by a higher voltage across a wire (on Netduino, that’s 3.3 or 5 volts) and 0s are represented by a low voltage across a wire (on Netduino, 0 volts).

Using these 1s and 0s, you can send high and low voltages to electronic components like LEDs and relays (turning them on and off). You can also receive high and low voltages from components such as pushbuttons: when your app receives a 1, it means the button is pushed.

Both Netduino and Netduino Plus have an onboard LED that can be controlled from code. As a first project, you’ll learn how to send digital 1s and 0s by blinking this LED. Later in this chapter, you’ll learn how to read the state of Netduino’s onboard pushbutton.

Start Visual Studio

Start Visual C# Express 2010 (if you use the full version of Visual Studio 2010, start Visual Studio 2010 instead). The installer (see Step 1: Install Visual Studio Express) created a folder and shortcut for this program in your Start menu under All Programs (Windows Vista or Windows 7) or Programs ...