• Basic Arduino code (printing joystick values and button presses to the console)

• Crazy Arduino code (controlling a melody and tempo with the joystick)

• Basic Processing code (basic Processing integration)

• Advanced Processing code (painting on a window)

If you have no idea what to do with a joystick, checkout this video:

How do I make it work?

Once you've got the shield assembled, you can begin to change the example code to

make the joystick do your bidding:

• How do I find the current position of the joystick?

• How do I find the current direction of the joystick?

• How do I set up the Arduino so I can know when a button has been pushed on

the Joystick Shield?

• How do I know when a button on the Joystick Shield has been pressed?

• How can I avoid repeating the setup code for each button?

• How can I use the joystick with Processing (and Firmata)?

How do I find the current position of the joystick?

The position of the joystick is calculated from the two potentiometers in the joystick.

The joystick can move in two dimensions which typically would represent X and Y

coordinates but could represent any two dimensional quantity. To read the

potentiometers we use the analogRead() function which returns a number from 0 to

1023. We need to supply an analog pin number to the function—for the joystick shield

the X position is read from analog pin 0 and the Y position is read from analog pin 1:

Serial.println(analogRead(0)); // Prints current X position

Serial.println(analogRead(1)); // Prints current Y position

It is a good technique—because it clarifies your intent—to use ''constants'' for values

that will not change when your sketch runs. With this in mind, the following sketch

snippet sets up constants for the analog pins used and prints the current X and Y

positions to the serial console:

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