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References: Physical Computing and Electrical Safety Basics

  1. Physical computing - Wikipedia - Defines the field connecting software to sensors, motors, and lights in the physical world, the umbrella topic this chapter opens with.

  2. Breadboard - Wikipedia - Explains how a solderless breadboard's internal strips connect components, the foundational tool this chapter teaches before any circuit is built.

  3. Light-emitting diode - Wikipedia - Covers how an LED converts current into light and why it needs a current-limiting resistor, the science behind this chapter's blinking-light circuit.

  4. Make: Electronics (3rd Edition) - Charles Platt - Maker Media - Platt is widely credited with the most popular hands-on, experiment-first introduction to breadboards, resistors, and LEDs for beginners with no assumed background, the same experiment-first approach this chapter follows.

  5. Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers - Dan O'Sullivan and Tom Igoe - Course Technology PTR - O'Sullivan and Igoe coined and popularized "physical computing" as a course of study connecting the digital and physical worlds, the term and framework this chapter opens with.

  6. How to Use a Breadboard - SparkFun Learn - A beginner tutorial on breadboard anatomy and power rails, directly supporting this chapter's breadboard-basics section.

  7. Voltage, Current, Resistance, and Ohm's Law - SparkFun Learn - Uses a water-tank analogy to explain voltage and current, the basic electrical vocabulary this chapter introduces before any circuit is wired.

  8. Battery Safety Tips - Electrical Safety Foundation International - Ten safety principles for handling and storing batteries, directly supporting this chapter's battery-safety and static-electricity-precaution sections.

  9. All About LEDs - Adafruit Learning System - A deeper walkthrough of LED polarity, current, and resistor selection, extending this chapter's LED-basics and blinking-light-circuit sections.

  10. Raspberry Pi - Wikipedia - Covers the Raspberry Pi family, including the low-cost Pico microcontroller board used for digital and analog input and output throughout this book's physical computing chapters, previewing the hardware this chapter's I/O vocabulary later controls.