Blanks teaching other blanks question

Support
#1

Howdy,

I’m new to this community (picked up a kit at PAX East!) and just started messing around with my dev kit and had a question about the properties of the Blank Blinks.

So my programmer Blink can teach all my blanks if I run an Upload from Arduino with them all connected to the programmer, and that teaches the game/sketch to all the attached Blanks.

I expected if I detached a Blank from the programmer that was taught something, and put the newly taught Blank into teaching mode and paired it with other Blanks that weren’t part of initial teaching, that the untaught Blanks would learn the sketch that the programmer applied to the original taught Blank.

However when I do that final step, all the blanks attached reset to the default Blank code and nothing gets shared.

Am I doing something wrong, or Is this a feature of the Blanks to not allow each Blank learn and store an individual Game and share its game with other blanks without the need to reprogram using the programmer?

Thank you!
-False

#2

Just to be sure, you did actually upload something to your blank, right?

#3

Thanks for the reply KittiMeow

Apologies, my terminology of uploading to a Blink may be off?

Based on my understanding running this step is programming a game to a Blank

  1. Load an example program by picking File->Examples->Getting Started->Color Wheel
  2. Connect the programmer to a blink and press the Upload button…
  3. You should see scrolling messages in the bottom Arduino window pane and the program should download into the blink.
  4. When the download is done, you should see a pretty color wheel on the LEDs!`

is that uploading a game to the Blank? Or am I missing something?

#4

That’s pretty much it!

#5

As far as I know, to semipermanently teach any blink a game so that it can teach this specific game to other blinks you always need the programmer to override it’s initial game code (or default blank code). The programmer blink is just for trying and experimenting. It teaches attached blinks just as much, as any other blink teaching it’s game to other blinks. Blanks are nothing special when it comes to writing games on them. They just come without a game to start with

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#6

Thank you Schneeleopard,

That makes sense! Based on that, is there a way with the programmer to override a Blank’s initial game code? I couldn’t find anything regarding this through my docs searches, but may have missed it

#7

I think it was explained in the getting started video a little later. It was a big help for me. You need to take out the battery and then next to the battery contacts there is a little sticker you need to remove. Then you find the little metallic holes to put the programmer pins in. You need to hold it in place white uploading. I also recommend placing the sticker on the battery contacts when you use the programmer, because if you happend to slip and the programmer touches the battery contacts they could “burn” (sorry, don’t know the correct word) After you’re done just place the sticker back on the programmer contacts before you put in the battery again

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#8

Yep, that’s pretty much it. Also, be sure you don’t press too hard on it or put it in backwards as you could brick the blink this way.
EDIT: Just to make it clear, by “it” I was referring to the programmer.

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#9

Just to clarify: Every Blink has a potential of having 2 games: One is the default one that is resident in the Blink and the other one is the one that the Blink potentially learns from other Blinks. The first one is always the one that is sent when teaching other Blinks. In the case of Blanks, by default it is just the standard Blank sketch.

You CAN change the first game, but you need to use the programmer tool for that.

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#10

Thanks everyone for all the replies. I really appreciate it!

Looks like I missed it in the video like Schneeleopard mentioned, which I’ll rewatch now!

#11

Glad we could help you.