Arduino Programming with XOD - Learning XOD

Learn to use XOD, a graphical programming environment for the Arduino.

This tutorial was sponsored by XOD.

XOD is a free open source development platform for the Arduino that lets you create Arduino projects without writing a single line of code! It’s ideal for rapidly developing projects, and it’s a viable alternative to the Arduino IDE.

Unlike the Arduino IDE, XOD uses a graphical user interface, which is available as both a desktop client (for Windows, Mac, and Linux) and as an online application. You assemble XOD programs by hooking up “nodes” on a working surface called a “patch”. It’s a lot easier than writing code and once you're done you just deploy everything to your Arduino.

In this video, I will introduce you to XOD. I’ll show you the principles of XOD programming and how to obtain the XOD IDE for your computer. I’ll then take you through a couple of demonstrations to show you just how easy it is to program in XOD.

In the first demonstration, you’ll learn how to work with XOD. We’ll start with a program that functions very much like the Arduino “Blink” sketch, and we’ll expand it to use two potentiometers to control the blink rate and duty cycle. You soon see how easy it is to program using XOD.

Then we’ll move on and rebuild and improve a project that I worked on in a previous video, an LCD temperature and humidity gauge. Using nothing but XOD we will quickly put the project together and add a push button to switch the display between Celsius and Fahrenheit.

Here is the Table of Contents for this video:

00:00 - Introduction
03:33 - XOD Theory
05:44 - Getting XOD
09:27 - Demo 1 - Working with an LED
26:49 - Demo 2 - Temperature & Humidity Gauge

You’ll see that XOD is easy and fun to use!

The folks who created XOD asked me to create this video and after trying XOD myself I was happy to oblige. I really think you’ll like XOD and that it will help you create wonderful Arduino projects without a lot of complex coding.

XOD is still in its infancy and it won’t completely replace the Arduino IDE (at least not yet) but it’s still a very powerful tool that you’ll enjoy using.

[xupermike]

I've watched a few of your videos. You really know about teaching. I seldom needed to rewind, nether did I have the urge to fast forward. Great pace and adequate pauses. Thank you for the courses.

[RonAday]

I really wish I knew about this channel a year ago. Would have saved me time and $$$, not to mention frustration. Absolute treasure!

[mandelbro]

XOD looks like a great way people can play with functionality, then reverse engineer the code, to learn more about coding and functional code structure; some people learn better this way. Great idea and look forward to seeing how and in which directions the XOD folks develop their software. Exciting time to be alive for hobbyists.

[JohnMcGraw]

At 71 yrs old I find hardcore programming to intense and thank you for this well made tutorial and the alternative method for toying with my Red Board (Arduino uno clone)

[willofirony]

Personally, when dealing with embedded software, I prefer a more low level approach. However, you showed why the XOD people asked you to produce a tutorial on their framework. Your presentation was faultless and your choices of example projects were inspired. You avoided overloading the neophytes while including enough complexity to demonstrate how XOD simplifies (abstracts) the inclusion of relatively complex algorithms. I am so looking forward to your future videos on XOD. Well done you!

[madhukeshnp]

50 min of tutorial !!!! Seriously did not feel like to skip or close even for a fraction of a second.. Really very interesting.. Keep this XOD videos coming. Very helpful. Thank you so much. No words to appreciate your work. Very calm n nice explanation.

[murrrr]

Thank you for being honest and bringing up the sponsoring clearly in the beginning.

[toms]

You are a brilliant instructor. Every time I watch one of your videos I am impressed that the presentation is complete, every bit of the info required is contained and explained. Thank you for taking the time to produce such professional content

[Ymanntronics]

Thank you so much, Sir! This XOD programming brought me more interests in dealing further with Arduino as I am used with logical / block programming with Siemens Logo. Have a nice day!

[rickrose]

Another great video, I'm 62 and haven't done much programing, I'm more of a hardware guy, and this is an excellent intro to visual programing. Thanks for the great tutorial with cool examples. I'm going to create a little weather station like this.

[Wild-Camping]

I applaud you on your delivery and very clear explanations, I tried XOD and to be fair I find it quite good at what it does, but like a few others I like to code in "low level" as you have more control over what's happening, plus these visual programming languages throw far too much junk into the mix, as an example, the Blink program using Arduino sketch uses 928 bytes but using XOD (in your example) it's bumped up to 2688 bytes, that's an extra 1760 bytes to do the same thing, on a program so simple nearly 2KB extra is 2KB wasted, as our programs get bigger I assume XOD is going to throw even more code into the mix and it won't be too long before lack of memory becomes an issue.

[murrayhalbert]

GREAT introduction to XOD. I loved a little controller called OOPIC but time and support took its toll. I went to the Arduino and learned C++ but the syntax of a writing coding can be a stumbling block and the ease of finding the error depends on how well the IDE program is written. Stumbling across your vid has renewed my enthusiasm on a couple of projects that took weeks to write the code and having fat or what ever fingers, taking more time to clean up the code. With robotics and automation being a necessity in factories and just regular day to day items in the house hold simplification wins out every time. You Sir, with the examples and narrative were excellent. Looking forward to more vids. Definitely subscribing

[anthonycalia]

Excellent and well articulated explanation. A joy to watch and I'm sure to explore XOD with a high priority. For a guy like me, who is well-versed in logic and circuits but weak in C++ type programming, this, much like Node Red, appears to be an excellent choice. Thanks so much for the effort you put in to making this video and I look forward to more.

[knoxieman]

This has saved me a lot of time, many thanks, the map-clip function for the flashing led/pot sketch now resides in the xod/math folder

[tunacangaming]

I don't write comments that often. Anyhow i just wanted too write one for you, because your channel must be one of the best in these kind of things!

The factors that makes your videos so good is
1. You explain everything very good, and in detail and most important you are pedagogical!
2. You have good visual explanations
3. This is the one that i really like! - you are calm! you don't over "hype" things like other you tubers does, and are like super eager.. you just explain everything in a calm and smooth way!

There is two downsides in your channel in my opinion and that is.
1. You should place your videos in playlists, you have playlists but only to different youtubers
2. You should upload more videos :D

[raybonz]

Your XOD videos are outstanding! I would love to see more! Thanks for the great informative and well explained information!

[itisonlyadream]

I love it! XOD is both intuitive and powerful and your tutorial was very clear and easy to understand. I disagree with the comments from those who think this will discourage people from learning to program "properly". I think it's just the opposite, because it frees the newcomer from the drudgery part of coding and allows people to get on with producing useful code for projects quickly and easily (which should be the goal). The current generation of programmers don't notice how much effort it takes to write conventional code, because it's become second nature to them. When Apple introduced the GUI, I felt the same way about the GUI, because I was entrenched in the old "command line" method of interacting with a computer. But, without the GUI, the general public would not have embraced the home computer and we would still be stuck in 1985 (working with MS-DOS). Progress is about making things easier to use, but it's hard for those of us who had to invest years learning to do things the old way to embrace change. For some tasks we will still need low level code, but for most tasks XOD (or something like it) will be faster and easier. I have a question, is there a reverse compiler which can take an existing sketch that was previously written in the Arduino IDE and convert it into a XOD diagram? I think that would be a useful tool for quickly analyzing the structure of existing programs.

[gkess]

Great, just what I needed to come across; yet another programming language.

[acadman]

Another great tutorial. I actually understood most of what you were talking about. XOD sounds like it is right for me. It's like the difference in starting a campfire by rubbing two sticks together v using a Bic lighter. A tool just makes it so much easier. XOD might be that tool in my case. I'm doing it.

[steve]

Hello. Again a very good presentation. The developers picked the best person to demo there product. I am going to continue to follow this series and start using XOD for some of my projects. Again thanks.