# Source: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-arduino-lesson-1-blink/uploading-blink-to-the-board.md

# Arduino Lesson 1. Blink

## Uploading Blink to the Board

Attach your Arduino board to your computer with the USB cable and check that the 'Board Type' and 'Serial Port' are set correctly. You may need to refer back to Lesson 0.  
  
The Arduino IDE will show you the current settings for board at the bottom of the window.

![](https://cdn-learn.adafruit.com/assets/assets/000/002/150/medium800/learn_arduino_bottom_of_ide_showing_board_port.jpg?1396779969)

Click on the 'Upload' button. The second button from the left on the toolbar.

![](https://cdn-learn.adafruit.com/assets/assets/000/002/151/medium800/learn_arduino_upload_button.jpg?1396779976)

If you watch the status area of the IDE, you will see a progress bar and a series of messages. At first it will say 'Compiling Sketch..'. This converts the sketch into a format suitable for uploading to the board.

![](https://cdn-learn.adafruit.com/assets/assets/000/002/152/medium800/learn_arduino_upload_1_compiling.jpg?1396779978)

Next, the status will change to 'Uploading'. At this point, the LEDs on the Arduino should start to flicker as the sketch is transferred.

![](https://cdn-learn.adafruit.com/assets/assets/000/002/153/medium800/learn_arduino_upload_2_uploading.jpg?1396779984)

Finally, the staus will change to 'Done'.

![](https://cdn-learn.adafruit.com/assets/assets/000/002/154/medium800/learn_arduino_upload_3_done.jpg?1396779992)

The other message tells us that the sketch is using 1,084 bytes of the 32,256 bytes available.After the 'Compiling Sketch..' stage you could get the following error message:

![](https://cdn-learn.adafruit.com/assets/assets/000/002/155/medium800/learn_arduino_upload_4_failed.jpg?1396779995)

The clue is at the top here, it probably means that your board is not connected at all, or the drivers have not been installed (if necessary) or that the wrong serial port is selected.   
  
If you get this, go back to Lesson 0 and check your installation.  
  
Once the upload has completed, the board should restart and start blinking.&nbsp;

- [Previous Page](https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-arduino-lesson-1-blink/saving-a-copy-of-blink.md)
- [Next Page](https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-arduino-lesson-1-blink/how-blink-works.md)

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