Arduino Workshop [5/11/2013]

Arduino is a an open-source electronics platform based on flexible easy to use hardware and software. Its the marriage of physical computing and interactivity. The computing world and physical world combine by using elements such as sensors, indicators and actuators, real world input to computer output and vice-versa.

AC/DC are two types of electrical output. AC is mainly used for mains sockets (3 pin sockets) and DC for mobile phones, battery'sand LED lights.

Arduino is a three step process- Computer, Program and Individual device. Using the Arduino software on your computer you write the code and then input it into the Arduino device then the device has a mini computer in it which then runs the code on the individual device without and other peripherals.

IDE integrated development environment "sketch" program for Arduino sends program to Arduino to program it - then becomes self sufficient computing device. compiles software into machine code which in Arduino land is a sketch.

The breadboard has a simplified c/c++ language with 8 analog ins 4 analog outs.

www.processing.org has loads of code which is compatible with Arduino that you can change, copy and modify to your specifications.

Below is a screen shot of me using. Arduino to make lights flash on the breadboard.

Arduino has its own development environment community which allows developers to share the code they've written. On the website Arduino also supplies users with a bank of processes and the code that accompanies them to allow novice users to start to develop and learn the skills for Arduino.

In addition to looking at Arduino was also looked at MakerCase. A website that allows you to generate nets for laser cutting based on your own specifications. Our task was to create a box that we could have lasercut and could potentially be used to in-case our Arduino breadboard.

Above is a link to the finished plan which has been exported and can now be lasercut.

Alongside Arduino we also looked at Inkscape. A open source software which works very much like Photoshop. I personally found it hard to use and struggled to get out of the Photoshop mindset which I think was then main cause of my struggle but here are a few of the tutorials I looked at to try and help me.