Beginner Friendly: What's for Dinner Arduino Project. Includes Code

Are you tired of deciding what to have for dinner every night? Let your Arduino take care of it with this fun and interactive "What's for Dinner?" project! This project uses an Arduino Uno, a 16x2 LCD display, a push button, and a potentiometer to randomly suggest a dinner option from a predefined list. When you press the button, the Arduino will display a random dinner choice on the LCD screen, making meal planning both simple and enjoyable.

Arduino Uno board

16x2 LCD Display (with a parallel interface)

Push Button

Potentiometer (10k Ohm)

Breadboard

Jumper Wires

220 Ω resistor

10K Ω resistor

Use this to set up, detailed instructions below too.

• connect from 5V to positive ground rail
• connect from GND to negative ground rail

• VDD: Connect to positive rail
• GND (VSS): Connect to negative rail
• VO: Connect to the middle pin of a potentiometer. Connect one end of the potentiometer to 5V and the other end to GND.
• RS: Connect to Arduino digital pin 12.
• RW: Connect to negative rail (since we are only writing to the LCD).
• E: Connect to Arduino digital pin 11.
• D4-D7: Connect to Arduino digital pins 5, 4, 3, and 2 respectively.
• A (Anode): Connect through a 220 Ω resistor to positive rail
• K (Cathode or GND): Connect directly to negative rail.

Connect V0 to the middle pin of a potentiometer. Connect one end of the potentiometer to positive ground rail and the other end to negative ground rail.

• Connect one leg to Arduino digital pin 7.
• Connect the other leg to GND through a 10k Ohm resistor.

Finished!