3A: LED

Make sure that your CoDrone Mini is paired before starting the lesson! If you forgot how to do this, make sure to review how to pair to Blockly here.

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 Mini has 1 RGB LED on the main body. 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. A solid LED means your drone is connected, while a flashing LED means it’s in pairing mode or the battery is low.

To use any of the LED blocks, go to the purple Lights menu.

For a solid LED, meaning it consistently stays the same color without any flashing, use the “color(_ , _ , _, _ brightness)” blocks.

Each of these blocks has two parameters, or characteristics:

Red, green, blue – An LED produces a color as a combination of red, green, and blue, or RGB for short. 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! Once you know what you wants your LED’s color to be, enter the RGB value into the first three spaces in the block.

Brightness – How bright the LED is, with 1 being off and 100 being maximum brightness. The brightness value will never be negative!

The turn off block does exactly what it says — it turns either the LED off. The reset LED block is a little like a factory reset, but only for the LED. After using this, your LED will most likely be solid red.

Program your drone to display the colors of the rainbow! Make sure each color shows for one second before switching to the next color. For optimal brightness, set it 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 using a loop!

We started the program for you — can you get the rest of the colors? Don’t forget to use an RGB color picker!

If you want to see LEDs in flight, just drag and drop the LED block into your flight program, or drag and drop the flight command block into your LED program! Try this code to see what happens.

Challenge: Disco Drone

Turn your CoDrone Mini into a disco ball! Use a loop to keep it spinning and flashing at least colors.