Blink to Smart Signals

Place the LED on the breadboard, then add a current-limiting resistor before connecting to digital pin 13. Ground the cathode side of the LED cleanly.

Before powering anything, verify orientation: the longer LED leg is the anode, and the resistor can go on either side of the LED in this simple loop.

Open the Arduino IDE, select the board and serial port, then upload a minimal blink sketch.

const int ledPin = 13;

void setup() {
  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
  digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
  delay(500);
  digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
  delay(500);
}

If the LED does not blink, re-check the pin, ground rail, and whether another shield or jumper is blocking the expected path.

Once the simple blink works, vary the delays to produce a pulse pattern that could represent charging, warning, or status.

This small change teaches the key embedded mindset: behavior emerges from state and timing, not from complex hardware alone.