[chbot] My Arduino robotics class in Korea

follower follower at rancidbacon.com
Sun May 20 13:09:50 BST 2012


On 20 May 2012 23:48, Andrew Errington <erringtona at gmail.com> wrote:
> The LED flashing is the simplest visible thing I know of, and it's
> also one of the demo/test projects with the Arduino software so is pretty
> much guaranteed to work.  To seasoned experimenters it sounds utterly
> trivial, but it demonstrates to the students that *they* are in control.
I like to point out that people will be using a flashing LED for the
rest of their time playing with these things--today it indicates their
Arduino software & hardware is set up and working correctly; tomorrow
it may mean their signal has successfully reached their satellite,
bounced off the moon and come back to them... And the buzz is always
the same. :) Soon followed by "Oh, but what happens if I change
this..."

> Practical session 1b is "make the LED flash every half-second" which is an
> immediate illustration of cause and effect and an affirmation that the
> student made it happen.
It's like you're reading my mind. :)

The sequence I use is: on-board LED flash; LED blink speed change;
connecting a bread board with LED; connecting a bread board & button;
and, (optional) making button control LED. That's normally enough
(with a bit of overview/background) to fill 3 hours with ~30 mostly
software developer adults.

> In Korea I have found at least two vibrant Arduino message boards, so I will
> encourage the students to look at what other people are doing (which will be
> accessible as it's in their own language).
I think it's beneficial to have a quick selection of 5-10 full screen
photo slides showing projects like the Botanicalls, light-up cycling
jacket and whatever turned up on the Make blog that day. :) Just to
give people an idea where they might go...

All the best! We'll be interested to hear your post-teaching report. :)

--Philip;



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