Arduino Workshop 2

The second Arduino workshop took place over three days in the InQbate room in December 07.

Massimo began by reintroducing us to the Arduino and taking us through some slightly more complex electronics and 'hacking' techniques. We looked at connecting a USB device to the Arduino using the mini USB adaptor and experimented with some LED matrix boards and solar panels.

We went on to look at shift registers and optocouplers and had some opportunity to develop our own small projects. I experimented with making sounds from my Arduino and ended up with a small drum machine.

Chris.

Arduino 2: On Home Ground

Our second opportunity to get to grips with the intricacies of the Arduino; on our home turf and in the most highly charged room in the Northern Hemisphere.
The electromagnetic pulse sent out by the spark that comes off those door handles has been known to stall cars as far afield as Helsinki.
We had the opportunity to look at more sophisticated uses of the boards mixed with Massimo’s refreshingly no-nonsense attitude to “hacking” bits of equipment to produce sophisticated installations out of the electronic equivalents of sticky back plastic and rubber solution glue.
I especially liked the idea of producing a snow board installation for the Italian Winter Olympics out of a usb keyboard chip and a ski game bought from a newsagent.
Henry and I worked on a program that would play a series of random videos that would reconstruct a version of the old Sunday afternoon film “The Cruel Sea”. This would be linked to a heat sensor and then to a coffee machine so that the reconstructed version of the film would reach a climax just as the water was boiling. It isn’t finished yet but it will be installed in the de-bugging room at Sussex and connected to their coffee machine.
We also had the mysteries of the Opto-coupler vouchsafed to us, a mind-bogglingly useful little device that allows you to trip electronic on/off switches via the Arduino board.
Another thorough and fascinating workshop.
Jeremy