02 · First steps

Getting started

Place three parts, draw three wires, and light an LED. Then save your first project.

Open the workbench. You can build and save locally without an account. For step-by-step prompts on the bench, use the Light your first LED tutorial.

Your first circuit

1Find the Battery in the palette on the left (or type “battery” in its search box), click it, then click an empty area of the bench to place it. Leave it at the default 5 V.
2Place a Resistor (220 Ω by default) and an LED the same way. Press Esc when you're done placing; press R before clicking to rotate.
3Switch to the Wire tool. Click the two end pads for each of these three wires: battery pos (+) → resistor a; resistor b → LED a (anode); LED k (cathode) → battery neg (−). Hover a pad to read its pin name. The resistor works either way round; the LED does not.
4Make sure the sim is running (Space toggles run/pause when you are not typing). The LED lights, and hovering a pin shows its live voltage. Select the resistor to try a larger resistance in the Inspector and watch the LED dim.

If the LED stays dark, check all three connections and the pin names. Select a wire and drag its end dot to reconnect it. Keep the resistor in the loop; it limits LED current. If a part has burned out, fix the wiring first, then use Restart from power-on.

Breadboards, when you want them

Add a breadboard from the palette's Boards section and parts snap to its holes. The five holes of each short column (rows a–e, f–j) are connected strips; the long +/− rails run the full width. Parts anchored on a board connect through the strips exactly like the real thing: no wire needed between two pins in one column.

The editing you expect

Use ⌘ in place of Ctrl on a Mac.

Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y: Undo · redo
Ctrl+A / Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V: Select all · copy · paste
Ctrl+D: Duplicate selection
Del: Delete selection
Shift + drag empty space: Box-select
F: Fit everything in view
Ctrl+K: Search everything: parts, actions, examples

Keep your work

Edit the project name in the header, then use File → Save to My Projects (Ctrl+S). Open it later with File → My Projects… (Ctrl+O). Autosave keeps a working draft in this browser; a named save makes it easy to find the project again.

Next, try the first-circuit walkthrough, learn to measure a signal, or read how to export and share your work.