Design flaws with some parts in starter kit!

I recently bought the Arduino Starter Kit from Arduino via Amazon.
It is all genuine Arduino stuff, nothing was missing or broken.
Then I came to the first projects that uses the potentiometers and tried to place them on the
breadboard like the book told me to. It just kept popping off. I figured it was because of the shape
of the pins on the bottom. They go vertically when the holes in the breadboard go horisontally.

Later I came to need the tilt switch. The pins are not long enough to fit into the breadboard!

Has anyone else come across this issue? if so, how did you come around it?

EvilDrSwazie:
the pins on the bottom..... go vertically when the holes in the breadboard go horisontally.

I'm having difficulty picturing that one in my mind.

Later I came to need the tilt switch. The pins are not long enough to fit into the breadboard!

Has anyone else come across this issue? if so, how did you come around it?

You need to collect a bunch of jumper wires with various end types: crocodile clips, male pins, female sockets, then you can connect about anything to anything.

Components are notorious for not being breadboard-friendly, alas. It might be that the ones they use when they wrote the tutorials worked, but then ended up supplying similar but not identical parts in the kit.

I think what the OP is saying that if you purchase a starter kit for learning, you would expect it to work with the breadboard and the components to match the examples.

I don't know if it is a complaint of just a statement.

I know people that would buy one of these kits and have no access to soldering tools so the kit is basically useless. If it was me, I would be returning it.

MeSat:
I don't know if it is a complaint of just a statement.

It was two questions actually, and I answered this one:

how did you come around it?

You're totally correct though MeSat: a starter kit should work right out of the box without resort to bending pins or using extra components like jumper wires.

MeSat:
I think what the OP is saying that if you purchase a starter kit for learning, you would expect it to work with the breadboard and the components to match the examples

Yup. Couldn't agree more (with OP). You shouldn't have to work-around, and, as a newbie, you're least prepared to do so.

I had exactly the same problem with the potentiometer, the tilt switch and to a lesser extent the push buttons: they do not seat properly and often pop out of the board. It's kind of frustrating.

However, what is even more frustrating is the fact that Project 12 needs a line of code added to reset the numberOfKnocks to zero at the end of the loop. Now that is a serious screw up. What's funny though is that the process of finding the fix was enlightening for me. Maybe the error was intentionally included just to force people to think for themselves. It did that for me.

I give up project #5.
The illustrations in the book are wrong.
The potentiometer take the five slots on the breadboard. It can't seat properly across the center of the board ever.
The servo motor can't be plug. It doesn't stay at all.

Like EvilDrSwazie, if you know how to fix this, please tell us.

Hello.

The Project Book is not perfect, but neither life is.

Take my experience as example:

When I finished writing the program for Project #3, I got an error while uploading it. After going across different electronic forums, I found that I messed up my microcontroller and now I have to buy a new ATM328P-PU and burn the bootloader so I can continue with my project.

Bottom line is, a problem (ruining the chip) is letting me learn more about the whole thing.

Your inquiries are not that difficult to solve:

  • the breadboard and whatever you want to plug in it, is like Lego.
    Be patient, and try to fit it in keeping in mind the electrical theory and not only what the picture is showing.

  • the legs of some elements might not fit perfectly, but if you bend it in one way or another, it will work.

And, just like Artauld wrote, some errors might be intentional since critical thinking is a must.

Best regards.

Ok, the noob I am didn't know that the black part of the male header pins could be move. That makes one problem solved.