The RFID reader uses a serial connection with the Arduino to pass data to it. The easiest way to do this is to use the pins that are also used for the USB serial connection; the disadvantage of this is that the USB connection cannot be used and that there is only one. The SoftwareSerial library allows us to create serial connections with other pins.

We had a problem with our code for the RFID reader where it would freeze the Arduino unless it was able to read an RFID tag. It turned out that we were using an old version of Arduino and since Arduino 1.0 SoftwareSerial has been based on NewSoftwareSerial which fixed the freezing problem. Another problem we had was that we were using pins on the Arduino Mega 2560 that do not support a feature necessary for SoftwareSerial. Both of these problems would have been solved by actually reading the reference.

We made use of the LCD display used in Fickleduino to display the RFID tags owners’ names.