The Arduino programming/ electricity project was a long one because there was a lot to learn about circuits, frequencies, etc and it was all very complex. To begin the whole thing, you got with a partner that had about the same level of experience working with circuits and electricity as you did. I had hardly worked with electricity and all I knew about circuits is that it has something to do with circles. My partner was Alex Sheron. To start, we worked through a packet that had circuits to set up with light bulbs and wires and batteries. It also had us answer questions. Alex and I struggled a bit with that packet, but at the end we understood all we were expected to from the packet. Next, we worked on breadboards with wires. It has a small packet explaining how to set up the circuits, etc. This was a lot easier as it was easier to have a strong connection with the breadboard instead of connecting two alligator clips like we had to in the first packet. We had a quiz on our ability to put together a circuit with the breadboards. We passed that and Mr. Williams said we put it away in the most complex way possible, but it worked. After the breadboards, we worked on a packet that had a bunch of mini projects that we could make on Arduino to understand how Arduino works. These explained how the codes worked and we used a breadboards to make flashing lights, mini games etc with the codes that were already made. Now, we were ready to work on our final project, for the robot art show.
Final Project= Robot Art
Finally, we started out robot art show. It was Alex, Connor Moylan, and I working together. We began by using the piezo buzzer and we wanted to make the song Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus and have led lights flash to the beat. So, we started and we entered all the notes and the beat into the code and it sounded nothing like the song, so we had to start over. We brainstormed and we decided to try again with the song idea. We did Iron Man by Black Sabbath. We tried it and it sounded good. The piezo buzzer didn't do the electric guitar sound much justice, but it's fine. After getting the song right, we decided to put the lyrics in on an lcd display, almost like karaoke. Below is a picture and video of our finished project.
Here is a picture of our circuit diagram of our project.
Concepts
- circuit- a path between two or more points along which an electrical current can be carried
- frequency- the number of crests of a wave that move past a given point in a given unit of time. Frequency is measured in hertz, which one crest per second. Frequency is found by dividing the speed of the wave by the wavelength.
- breadboard- a board for making an experimental model of an electric circuit
- Arduino- an open-source electronics platform or board and the software used to program it
REFLECTION
This project was very difficult and frustrating at the beginning, but when we got to work on the Arduino, it was also difficult but fun. For our next project, we are supposed to go more in depth on a previous project and I am going to make a better Arduino project.
Peak: The whole Arduino part was fun and pretty quick to do. We needed a little help from Mr. Williams for some of the coding stuff, but we figured it out in the end and it was enjoyable.
Peak: Our final project worked like it was supposed to. There were a few groups who had it totally correct, but it still didn't work for a reason that couldn't be figured out. Some people had to change a lot of stuff because it wasn't working.
Pit: While working on the first packet, we got behind everybody because we weren't very good at setting up the circuits and had to skip a few problems to catch up. But, we didn't miss anything from those problems and understood everything we had to.
Pit: We had to start over our project when we tried to do the Party in the USA song. We only wasted half a day on it, so it wasn't terrible, but it was still frustrating.
This project was very difficult and frustrating at the beginning, but when we got to work on the Arduino, it was also difficult but fun. For our next project, we are supposed to go more in depth on a previous project and I am going to make a better Arduino project.
Peak: The whole Arduino part was fun and pretty quick to do. We needed a little help from Mr. Williams for some of the coding stuff, but we figured it out in the end and it was enjoyable.
Peak: Our final project worked like it was supposed to. There were a few groups who had it totally correct, but it still didn't work for a reason that couldn't be figured out. Some people had to change a lot of stuff because it wasn't working.
Pit: While working on the first packet, we got behind everybody because we weren't very good at setting up the circuits and had to skip a few problems to catch up. But, we didn't miss anything from those problems and understood everything we had to.
Pit: We had to start over our project when we tried to do the Party in the USA song. We only wasted half a day on it, so it wasn't terrible, but it was still frustrating.