The map
/learn is the map: every path, each drawn as chapters with the
lessons inside them. A path opens at /learn/path/<id>. The Learn page in
the editor lists them as courses, the ones you have started first. See
the Learn page.
Everything works signed out. Progress is kept in this browser and merged into your account the first time you sign in, keeping the higher of every number and the union of every badge, so nothing you did is taken away.
The board paths
- Electronics basics, about 7 hours. A breadboard, a few parts and no processor at all: what current, voltage, time and logic really do.
- Embedded on the Arduino Uno, about 12 hours. One board, twenty pins and a C++ sketch, from a lamp you switch to a game you can play.
- Embedded on the ESP32-C3, about 11 hours. A 32 bit RISC-V board at 160 MHz, its own peripherals, its own 3.3 V rules, and a console at the end.
- Embedded on the Raspberry Pi Pico, about 6 hours. A Cortex-M0+ at 125 MHz, PWM on every pin, a 64 bit clock, and pins that do not forgive 5 V.
- Embedded on the STM32F411, about 6 hours. A Cortex-M4 at 84 MHz, where a pin is a port and a number and every peripheral starts with its clock off.
- C++ on a board, about 10 hours. The language, one idea per lesson, on a board that shows you what your code did.
The focus paths
- Digital logic and memory, about 4 hours. Gates, a latch, a counter and a shift register, reusing lessons from the electronics path.
- Interactive devices on the Uno, about 8 hours. Buttons, timing, sensors and outputs from the Uno path, ending in two builds you can play.
- From gates to a computer, about 16 hours. One NAND gate up to a computer of your own that runs your program.
- Fix the bug, eight short puzzles on an Uno: one planted fault each, in the wiring or the code. Find it, fix it, and see it work.
The twelve-week course from /curriculum is on the map as a path too.
Starter kit companions
Three paths follow the popular Uno starter kits project for project, in each kit's order, so you can build along with your kit or try its projects before you buy one. /learn/arduino-starter-kit has all three.
- The project book, 15 lessons, following the official Arduino Starter Kit.
- The 24-lesson kit, following the Elegoo Uno R3 Super Starter Kit.
- The 33-lesson kit, following the Elegoo Uno R3 Most Complete Starter Kit.
The two Elegoo paths share a lesson wherever the kits share a project, and a lesson finished on one is finished on the other.
Build paths
Most paths build one finished project a step at a time, usually in one to six hours. Each lesson's circuit is the finished one with only the parts that lesson is about, in the same places on the same pins, so nothing you wire up moves later. Many end at the finished build in the project gallery.
- Games and arcade: a claw machine, a vending machine, a pinball table, a slot machine, a rhythm game, a handheld game console and a fight stick.
- Props and lights: a laser sword, an arc reactor and helmet, a Halloween prop, Christmas lights, lights for the holidays and a 4x4x4 LED cube.
- Characters: a pocket pet on an OLED and a desk buddy robot with animated eyes.
- Space: a model rocket flight computer, a Mars rover, a satellite tracker and a spaceship control panel.
- Puzzles and science: an escape-room puzzle box, a science fair lie detector, a balance bot and a solar tracker.
- Controllers: sim racing and flight sim controllers, custom keyboards from the matrix up, a macro pad, a MIDI controller, a guitar controller and load cell pedals.
- Home and hobby: Home Assistant devices, a smart home hub, model railroad electronics, 3D printer and CNC basics, and a camera slider.
Some have a guide of their own: pinball table, slot machine, sim rig controllers, keyboard matrix, Home Assistant devices, model railroad and 3D printer and CNC.
For a university or college circuits lab, the EE lab track is a graded course of its own.
Inside a lesson
The lesson opens in the editor as a pane beside the circuit. It is steps, each with instructions, an optional hint, and a Check.
A Check reads the same frame of the simulation the canvas is drawing. A lesson you write can use four kinds:
- pin: a pin has to be at a level, or to have toggled so many times
- probe: a part's own reading has to be in a range, which is how "the LED is lit" is judged
- serial: the serial output has to contain something
- manual: nothing to check, so you tick it yourself
The first three mean the circuit genuinely did the thing. The last means you read a paragraph, and the XP says so.
Some lessons Mokxi ships use three more. A truth table step tests your logic circuit on every input when you press Check. A placed step passes when the parts it asks for are on the board. And a wired step, as in the first two lessons on the electronics path, Build your first circuit and Make it blink with an Uno, is checked against the wires you have drawn, not a running circuit, so it ticks itself the moment the right wire lands and the next step opens on its own. If something is missing, the line above the buttons says which two things are not joined yet. The two holes each step is about pulse on the board, and on a phone the board zooms in until they are far enough apart to hit with a finger. In the first lesson, the last step, holding the button, also passes by itself while you hold it.
Chapters and bosses
Each path is chapters, and a chapter ends in a boss lesson. A boss step pays double, which is the whole reason to reach the end of a chapter.
A node on the map unlocks when the one before it is done.
Writing your own
The editor has an authoring pane: write the steps, and build each checkpoint from a list of the circuit's actual pins, nets and probes rather than typing a name and hoping. There is a Preview as learner button, and a finished lesson can be published, hearted and forked like a project.
A teacher can assign one to a class. See assignments and submissions.
What you earn
XP and levels, streaks and badges, and the weekly challenge and the leaderboard.