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 either 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 one or more of these parameters: 

Color – To change the color of the LEDs, click on the color. It will bring up a menu so that you can choose which color you want to change your CoDrone LEDs to. 

Brightness – In the solid LED blocks, this refers to the light’s brightness, with 0 being off and 100 being full brightness.

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 

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

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!

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. Use long and short flashes to send your messages using different values for the wait block.