Programming 101

IDE Basics

Learn about the tools you need to write, test, and upload code to your hardware.

What is an IDE?

An IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment. That sounds fancy, but imagine you want to write a professional essay. You would use a program like Microsoft Word because it has a spellchecker, formatting tools, and a "Save" button all in one place.

An IDE is exactly that, but for coding hardware. It is a single window where you:

Write

Your instructions (Code)

Check

For mistakes (Debugging)

Send

To hardware (Uploading)

The Kriya Advantage

Usually, setting up an IDE involves downloading gigabytes of data. Our Kriya Station lives right in your web browser. If you can open a website, you can code a robot!

COM Ports: The "Doorway" to Your Device

When you plug your Kriya Kit into your laptop via USB, your computer needs to know where it is. It treats the USB plug like a specific "doorway" or "address."

  • On Windows, these are called COM Ports (Communication Ports)
  • They are numbered: COM3 COM5
  • On Mac/Linux, they look like /dev/ttyUSB0

Think of it like a mail carrier delivering a package to an apartment building. The "COM Port" is the specific apartment number.

IMPORTANT

If you send your code to the wrong apartment (port), your robot will not move! Our IDE will ask you to select the right port before you hit "Upload."

Baud Rate: The Speed of the Secret Handshake

Once the "doorway" (COM Port) is open, the computer and the hardware start talking. But they need to agree on how fast they are going to talk. This speed is called the Baud Rate.

  • If the computer talks too fast and the hardware listens too slowly, the message gets scrambled.
  • It is like trying to listen to a podcast at 5x speed - you hear noise, but you do not understand the words.
FUN FACT

The word "baud" is named after Émile Baudot, a French telegraph engineer who invented the Baudot code in the 1870s!

In our workshops, we usually use a standard speed of 9600. Here is how you set it in code:

setup()
1void setup() {
2  // Start the serial communication at 9600 baud
3  Serial.begin(9600); 
4  
5  Serial.println("Hello, Robot!");
6}