Safety and Help
These projects use low power, but it is still smart to build carefully.
Safety rules
- Do not work on a circuit if something is hot
- Unplug the board if you think you wired something incorrectly
- Never force a part into the breadboard
- Keep metal objects away from the board while it is powered
- Ask for help if a part smells hot or looks damaged
Normal beginner mistakes
Almost everyone makes these at first:
- putting an LED in backward
- forgetting the resistor
- using the wrong breadboard row
- connecting to the wrong pin
- missing a ground connection
- typing a pin number wrong in code
That is normal. Finding and fixing mistakes is part of electronics.
A good debugging order
If your circuit is not working, check in this order:
- Is the board plugged in?
- Are all wires pushed in firmly?
- Is the LED facing the correct direction?
- Is there a resistor where there should be one?
- Did you connect to the pin you used in your code?
- Does the code run without an error message?