Connections to Arduino

[austin]

@MotorHead I was hoping to pick your brain with a few questions I’ve been pondering.

1. For the Arduino and other microcontrollers that we add in the future, would you find it more useful to keep the connection rail that we have currently, or instead to allow wires to be placed directly to pins on the component visual. I’m working on prototyping a new behavior, so I wanted to know if you would find this useful.

2. Would you find it more useful for all of the wires connected to a breadboard pin to attach to the display-only connection point next to the breadboard pin as we currently have. Or would it be more useful to allow those wires to connect to a specific breadboard pin (column A,B,C,…F,G,H,I,J)

[MotorHead]

For #1: I can’t decide between either option because I can see the advantages for both, so I would suggest having another switch next to the Arduino switch where the user can select either option (see pictured). Maybe having the movable rail dock at the Arduino visual and hide so as to appear that the wires are connected to the visual would be useful. This would incorporate all three modes of connection, giving the user multiple options for optimizing their circuit construction.

For #2: Personally, I would prefer to use the pins at the end of the rows for simplicity’s sake. The only advantage I can think of for using wires connected to the middle pins would be for copying the design to an actual breadboard. Connecting wires to the middle pins would leave a lot of dots that could obscure component pin connections and confuse the user

[austin]

Thanks for getting back with this feedback!

For #1, that sounds like a great suggestion to support both types of connections and let the user toggle between them. I agree that there seem to be advantages for both. I can see the rail being great for quickly wiring up a circuit conceptually, but then flipping to the visual of wires connecting directly to the component when actually breadboarding the circuit.

For #2, this is very helpful to know. The intent of a consolidated pin was exactly as you pointed out, to have less clutter on the board. It’s great to hear that you find that useful. I’m hopeful that our other users will find this behavior intuitive.