Engineering Meeting: Getting Started With Arduino

We held a very successful engineering meeting after school on December 7th, 2012. We started the meeting by compiling a list of questions to ask our Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam Master Mentor, Chris Tacklind, via Skype. The questions ranged from topics such as the bike reflectors, photocells, and Arduino boards.

During our conference call, we discussed the best way to begin working with the Arduino syntax, using the breadboard, experimenting with the lasers, taking apart the bike reflectors to make our own cube reflectors, using phone cameras when working with infrared sensors, blinking lasers, shading and filtering (using bandpass) photocells, and more.

Following the discussion, we went to research some of the items we talked about in our discussion. We divided up the research, with members researching optical power meters/oscilloscopes, wireless means of communication between multiple arduino boards, example Arduino codes from SparkFun, and Nordic radio modules.

A couple members of the team also began learning the coding for Arduino. We performed numerous experiments with multiple LED lights attached to the Arduino board and we successfully managed to alter the loop patterns of the LEDs by changing the blink speed, fade speed, and alternation of what time interval an LED turns on. Overall, we had a very successful first attempt at tackling the Arduino’s coding process.

—FG

One Comment

  1. Ms. Stauss says:

    This is fascinating work and the way your group works together is inspiring and impressive. I look forward to reading updates on all of the different pieces to your project and to learning more from you.

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