Innovior is Sri Lanka's premier technology company — engineering scalable software systems for enterprises while empowering the next generation of innovators through hands-on STEM education.
Our Innovior Kids Tech Academy (IITS) offers robotics, IoT, and coding programs for children aged 5–17 in Kundasale, Kandy. Today's Arduino workshop is a direct extension of that mission — we want every 15-year-old to understand that technology is something you build, not just consume.
We believe every student should have their "aha!" moment — that spark when code becomes motion, when a sensor reading changes a LED, when you built the thing that moved.
Spark — Intro to Arduino & Electronics
Senses — How sensors work + Ideas brainstorm
Build — Wire & code the IR remote car
Race Day — Compete & celebrate
Enterprise software company building scalable digital solutions — Analytics, E-Commerce, Cloud, AI Automation.
Visit Website →Sri Lanka's premier STEM academy. Robotics, IoT, and coding for kids 5–17 in Kundasale, Kandy.
Visit Website →By 3:00 PM, every team will have wired, coded, and raced a real Arduino-powered remote control car.
One afternoon, four sensors, one motor driver, and a remote control — by the end, every team drives a car they wired and programmed themselves.
An Arduino is a tiny, programmable computer brain — small enough to fit inside a toy car, cheap enough to break without panic, and simple enough to learn in an afternoon. You write instructions on your laptop, upload them over USB, and the board carries them out forever, even after you unplug your computer.
The brain in your laptop is powerful but needs a whole support team around it — separate memory chips, storage drives, a cooling fan, an operating system. It's built to juggle many apps at once.
An Arduino's brain, memory, and input/output pins all live on one tiny chip. No operating system, no juggling — it runs one job, perfectly, over and over. That's exactly what a robot or sensor needs.
The classic beginner board. USB-programmable, 14 digital pins, 6 analog pins, huge community. What we're using today.
Same idea, plus built-in Wi‑Fi and Bluetooth. Great once you want your project to talk to a phone app.
Very cheap, dual-core, programmable in Python or C++. A solid second board to try after Arduino.
A microcontroller alone can't feel the world — sensors are how it sees light, hears sound, measures distance, and detects touch. Click any sensor card to explore how it works, see wiring diagrams, and run live simulations.
Sees infrared light. Detects obstacles, or reads the coded pulses sent by a remote control.
Today's buildSends out sound pulses and times the echo to measure distance — the same trick as a bat.
DistanceResistance drops as light increases. Perfect for night lights that switch on automatically.
LightDHT11 or DHT22 modules report heat and moisture — the heart of a weather station.
ClimateThe simplest sensor of all: it's either pressed or it isn't. Great for first interactive projects.
InputA small microphone module that detects claps or loud noise — wire it to a clap-controlled lamp.
AudioDetects body heat moving across its lens — the sensor behind most security lights and alarms.
MotionMeasures water in soil between two probes — the brains behind a self-watering plant.
GardenOnce you know a handful of sensors, dozens of projects open up. These are hand-picked ideas a 15-year-old can actually build — ordered from beginner to stretch goal. Each one uses sensors you'll learn about today.
LDR detects darkness and auto-switches an LED strip on. Add a potentiometer to tune the sensitivity threshold.
LDR + LED + ResistorSound sensor catches a double-clap pattern and flips a relay to turn a room lamp on or off — no app, no remote.
Sound Sensor + RelayA remote sends infrared codes, the Arduino reads them, and a motor driver turns the wheels with variable speed — forward, back, left, right.
IR + L298N + PWM SpeedDHT11 reads temperature and humidity every second and prints them to an LCD or serial monitor. Add a buzzer for heat alerts.
DHT11 + LCD I2CSoil moisture probe reads dryness. When it drops below a set value the Arduino fires a mini pump for 3 seconds. Your plant will never thirst.
Soil Moisture + Mini PumpPIR sensor detects movement in a room and triggers a buzzer + LED flash. Add a keypad "password" to disarm it.
PIR + Buzzer + KeypadHC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor scans ahead. When something is closer than 20 cm the robot spins, picks a new direction, and drives on automatically.
Ultrasonic + Motors + ServoMount an HC-SR04 on a garage wall. An LED bar shows green → yellow → red as your car gets closer to the wall. Never hit the wall again.
Ultrasonic + LED BarA potentiometer or app controls the colour of an RGB LED strip. Add a sound sensor mode where it reacts to music beats.
RGB LED + PWMA servo motor rotates a food dispenser on a schedule. Use a push button override for manual feeding — never miss mealtime.
Servo + RTC ModuleFour parts, wired together: an IR receiver to listen for commands, a motor driver to do the heavy lifting, the Arduino Uno to think, and two DC motors to move. Let's meet each one.
analogWrite(ENA, speed) where speed is 0–255, you can control how fast each motor spins. Low value = slow, 255 = full speed. The car's "forward" and "backward" commands now accept a speed argument!An infrared remote doesn't send sound or radio — it blinks an invisible infrared LED in a fast pattern, like Morse code made of light. Every button sends its own unique pattern.
The IR receiver module on the car has three pins. It catches that blinking light and turns it into a single digital signal the Arduino can read — then a small code library (IRremote) decodes which button was pressed.
Arduino pins are gentle — they can push out only a tiny trickle of current, nowhere near enough to spin a motor. The L298N module is the muscle: it takes Arduino's small control signals and uses them to switch a much bigger battery current through the motors.
Each motor gets two direction pins (to spin forward or backward) and one enable pin (to control speed via PWM).
Everything connects back to the Arduino Uno and a shared ground. Trace the colours: red is power, grey/dark is ground, cyan is signal. Note ENA/ENB PWM pins for speed control.
Drag the slider — the duty-cycle waveform widens, the voltage average rises, and both wheels spin faster. This is exactly what analogWrite(ENA, speed) does behind the scenes.
The real boards and the full wiring you'll be putting together on the bench.
The last 15 minutes of the workshop is a timed obstacle course. Every team competes — fastest car with the fewest crashes takes the trophy. Here's how judges score it.
A figure-8 slalom with two checkpoints and a 30 cm-wide gate at the finish line.
Use the slider — not all 255. Medium PWM values (~160) are often faster around corners.
Drive in a figure-8 before the race. Asymmetric motor strength is the #1 cause of straight-line drift.
Point your remote at the receiver dome, not the side. Aim within 30° for reliable signals.
A loose dupont wire during the race costs seconds. Tape down the ribbon before you start.
Map one remote button to IN1=LOW, IN2=LOW, ENA=0. Clean stops win close races.
Press a button to start, not power-on — avoids false starts when everyone plugs in at once.
You now know how to read sensors, drive motors with PWM, decode infrared signals, and write structured Arduino code. Every project idea on the board is buildable by you — today was just the beginning.