title: Arduino LCD only showing black boxes on bottom row
body: <p><strong>Disclaimer:</strong> This is homework.</p>
  
  <p>I'm taking an Arduino class and for our project we have to implement a simple sketch. The hardware involved is the <a href="http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardADK" rel="nofollow">Arduino Mega ADK board</a> and the <a href="http://www.rugcommunity.org/page/seeed-studio-electronic-brick" rel="nofollow">Electronic Brick Starter Kit</a>. I have been able to successfully communicate with the Arduino with my sketches; other things (like the push-button, and LED's) seem to work, except for the LCD. I've followed numerous tutorials (including the on sample program for LCD's in my second link), but I can't get anything to work. My LCD consistently shows black boxes in the bottom line. From looking around, I see that black boxes show up when the LCD isn't connected properly. However, this is a starter kit which contains cables that you can hook up to a chassis, which gets rid of the pain involved in soldering individual wires. Is there something wrong with my LCD? Here's a simple sketch that I'm unable to get to work:</p>
  
  <pre><code>#include &lt;LiquidCrystal.h&gt;
  
  LiquidCrystal lcd(10,11,12,13,14,15,16);
  
  void setup()
  {
    Serial.begin( 9600 );
    lcd.begin(16, 2);
    lcd.clear();
  }
  
  void loop()
  {
    lcd.setCursor(0,0);
    lcd.println( "hello world!    ");
    delay(1000);
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The pins correspond to BUS2 and I've properly hooked up my cable from BUS2 to the LCD.</p>