So lets say the pot gives the Ardunio a 1, I can relate that to 2.84
degrees?
Yes, if the pot goes from 0 to 1023 in 360 degrees of rotation, and it can rotate continuously. That sounds unlikely - f/ex, thinking about how a pot is made, how will it get from its maximum resistance to its minimum resistance in 2.8 degrees?
Instead of it turning around 348 degrees, it just cross pass 360
Smart software. :) You would need to read the pot, decide which direction of rotation will get from the current position to the new position, and select that direction in the motor drive circuit.
Update:
A pot doesn't really "output" anything; it is a variable-resistor, whose resistance can be measured by placing it in a known electric circuit and using an Arduino A2D input to measure a voltage in that circuit which depends on the resistance of the pot. The reading you get is a 10-bit integer. If you divided that by 1024, you'd have a pure fraction representing the measured voltage as a fraction of the A2D's full-scale voltage, which you select as INTERNAL (1.1v internal reference voltage), or EXTERNAL and apply a reference voltage to the chip's Aref pin. Usually that is the power-supply voltage, and in any case must not exceed the power-supply voltage.
So, back to reality, if you use the EXTERNAL reference with Aref connected to +5v, then the A2D readings would mean:
A2D Volts Mag.Azimuth
0 0 0
256 1.25 90
512 2.5 180
768 3.57 270
1023 4.99+ 359.6
In this case you probably don't care about the measured voltage, only it's relationship to 5v, which the A2D already gives you. That relationship equals the pot's relationship to 1 full rotation. So the azimuth, Az, you're seeking:
Az/360 = A2D / 1024, and
Az = (A2D * 360)/1024