LEDs

LED stands for “light-emitting diode”. A diode is an electronic device that allows an electronic current to flow in only one direction. LEDs are beginning to replace traditional light bulbs because they are more efficient. 

Your CoDrone has 6 RGB LEDs: one on each of the four arms, one for the eyes, and one for the tail. RGB stands for red, green, and blue. Using the three colors, you can create almost every color imaginable! Aside from making your drone look cool, LEDs provide another form of feedback. For example, the tail light can tell you the connection status of your drone. A solid green tail light means your drone is connected, while the flashing green light indicates it’s in pairing mode. While you cannot change the colors of this particular LED, the remaining 5 LEDs can be programmed to produce any color and pattern that you want! 

CoDrone provides functionality so that you can change the arm LEDs, eye LEDs, or both at the same time! All of these functions can be found in the Lights menu. 

Each LED block has the same three components:

Red, green, blue – An LED produces a color as a combination of red, green, and blue (hence the name RGB LED). All of these values range from 0 to 255 corresponding to the color’s intensity, with 255 being the highest. For example, the RGB values for the color red correspond to [255,0,0]. What are the RGB values for blue and green? What about purple? Use an RGB color picker like this one to find out!

Mode – The mode refers to the light pattern that you want to choose: 

• BLINK flashes LEDs on and off 
• DOUBLE BLINK flashes LEDs on twice before turning off 
• DIMMING fades the LEDs in and out 
• PULSE turns on and off LEDs on each arm before moving to the next arm 
• REVERSE PULSE does the same as PULSE but in the opposite direction 

Interval – The frequency (per second) for any light pattern. The interval value will never be negative! 

You may have noticed that when you initially pair to your CoDrone, the eye and arm LEDs are always red. You can change these default settings using the following blocks.

For example, if you want to change the default arm LED to blinking purple instead of the default red, you could use a block like this:

The next time you pair your drone, the arms will flash purple. Keep in mind that using this method will not change the colors of your drone while flying — only when you reset the drone.

Pair to CoDrone and practice using the LEDs to make a rainbow. Make sure each color shows for one second before switching to the next color. For optimal brightness, set the brightness to 100. Use the wait block for one second in between the color blocks so you can see each color before it moves on to the next one. Have the pattern repeat forever using a loop.

We have the first color set up for you — it’s your turn to program the rest!

Challenge: Spy Mission

The first system of electrical telecommunication was the telegraph. It was a device that sent pulses of electricity, either long or short, to send messages. Letters were defined by unique combinations of long and short beeps called Morse Code. You may be able to recognize this message: 

. . . _ _ _ . . . 

This message reads SOS! Look up the Morse Code alphabet and learn some letters. Try coming up with a method to send messages using Morse Code with your CoDrone. If you want, pair up to decode each other’s messages. Send long and short ashes to send your messages using different values for the wait block.