[chbot] APC Magazine Arduino Article

[Charles Manning]

You must include the blinking LED. It is a rite of passage. It is an offering 
to the Embedded Gods. If you do not make it then you will have a hard life 
with lots of blown chips etc. Like any journey you mist start out right! :-)

Getting the led blinking means you've got all the toolchain, cables and 
programming working. Enough for the first article.

But you want to make something a bit more interesting quite soon. Preferably 
something that has some action.

A few cool(ish) ideas:

* 2 LDRs as On/Off touch switches. When you cover the LDR the ambient light is 
blocked and the output turns on/off.

* 2 LDRs mounted on a servo that can track light.

* Digital lock using DS2401 single wire serial number chips as keys. Save 
a "database" of keys in EEPROM.


On Monday 03 August 2009 23:00:01 Tim Carr wrote:
> Hi all, I'm hoping I may be able to help me with some ideas. I've been
> asked by APC Magazine in Australia to write a series of articles related to
> getting started with Arduino. APC have picked up on the growing popularity
> of the platform and I've been tasks with writing a complete beginners
> article that gives them an interesting grounding in Arduino in just 2-3
> magazine pages and followed on by one or two more advanced articles.
>
> The challenge I see is not so much in the technology but in picking an
> interesting first project that leaves them with the desire to experiment
> and extend their knowledge. As a result I'm loath to start with the
> blinking light 'hello world' as I imagine there must be better options that
> haven't been thrashed. I must admit though, at this point it really does
> seem to be the best fit. Please prove me wrong....please.
>
> So, my question is this: When you started building robots, what really took
> your fancy and what do you feel may be a good starting 'micro-project' for
> others to start with?
>
> One aim (that may be asking too much) is to develop the howto in such a way
> that the initial article demonstrates the key essential elements of Arduino
> setup and use while being easily extended in the second article to produce
> something fun and functional. So perhaps the first may be setting up a
> servo to move and the second may make it follow the light (I'm not sure if
> that's too hard for newbies but you get my drift).
>
> Thanks in advance for any thought you can share on this.