Software Tools

Course Software Tools

Tools

• Each of our projects will be created with a combination of software (code) and hardware (connecting physical components)
• There are two main programs we will use to created our projects

Workbench

Workbench

• Workbench is the IDE we use for our projects (just like PyCharm, Visual Studio, etc.)
• Workbench serves two purposes
  • Writing / debugging / compiling code (just like other IDEs)
  • Flashing code to device (i.e. “installing” the code you wrote onto the device)
• Fun fact: Workbench is built as a plugin for VS Code, a simple but powerful IDE that can be used for all kinds of other languages (e.g. python, C++, HTML)

Fritzing

• Fritzing create visual diagrams of hardware projects
• Use this to plan out your design before actually building them
• This “prototyping” is the equivalent to writing pseudo-code before writing code

Fritzing Breadboard Layout

Actual Built Project

Quick Note

There is a more formal way of describing circuits we won’t use very often

Credits

• Images created with Fritzing