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

and more pics

more pics from December Arduino workshop

December Arduino

Having travelled to London for the last Arduino workshop we had Arduino come to Falmer in the shape of the man himself - Massimo Bansi.

Having covered the basics at the London workshop we were straight into more sophisticated techniques this time. We covered a bunch of topics which included writing to a USB disk directly from the Arduino board, a quick look at Bluetooth comms, the use of optocouplers for hacking consumer electrical goods and an introduction to shift registers.

Jon and I made a prototype low res display from LED boards which could display video or webcam feeds using serial comms from a Processing applet. I'm now working on an enhanced version that uses shift registers. Excellent workshop - if you ever get the chance to attend a small workshop with Massimo be sure to jump at the chance.



Gareth

Arduino workshop

We all went the the Tinker.it Arduino beginners workshop in London on the 17th & 18th November.

The workshop began with Massimo Banzi giving a history and overview of the arduino board and it's uses. After a quick coffee break we started 'tinkering' with our boards. Firstly the simple Hello World/LED flash, then on the the pulsing LED. I discovered that swapping the LED for a piezo made a very annoying square wave. The fist day was well structured and went at a nice steady pace.

The whole sunday was dedicated to our own projects. George, Henry and I decided to work in a group and produce two Braitenberg type vehicles, a predator and a prey. This almost worked and although we managed to get everything working, the vehicles were too heavy for the small motors.

In hindsight it would probably have been easier to make the vehicles without the arduino altogether. However, were we able to get the vehicles working, 'personalities' and other interesting features would have been possible via the arduino code.

The workshop was a good introduction to the arduino board as well as some beginner electronics and coding. Now we just need to think of something big to make for when Massimo visits in December.

Phidgets Smidgets.

So we met up at Brighton Station, the three of us, Jon “Time for a Coffee” Bird, Henry and me.A pleasant journey up to Kings Cross spent discussing projects, computers and art. Much to the delight of our fellow passengers .

We met the others on the way to The Wellcome Trust and so we started the class. Massimo Banzi explained the origins of the Arduino board as a device to allow for the rapid prototyping of design ideas. He has a way of talking about technology that makes you believe that you can just start taking things apart and building machines out them. We spent the first day learning the basics of the control programmes and by 5.30 we were well “cooked on both sides”.

We were encouraged to bring various bits of redundant kit to “hack” for the next day. I brought in an old Wacom tablet as I thought it might contain some interesting possibilities and I had always wanted to see the inside of one. After chatting to Massimo about how to get some readings out of it, I attempted to solder some wires to strategic places on the circuitry. Unfortunately I succeeded in burning a large hole in it.

I decided instead to find some more detailed and challenging programming exercises on the web and found a site called “Processing Meets Arduino” which had a number of projects based on the interaction between sensors and software.

It taught me quite a lot, especially the importance of efficient and accurate electronics when putting together these sorts of systems. I speak as someone who comes from an art background who had not programmed before last month.

The workshop drew to a close with a review of everyone’s projects and the award of Tom Igoe’s book Making Things Talk to the person whose name was drawn out of a hat. We all came away from the workshop feeling inspired and well informed enough to know how to put that into practice. We look forward to Massimo’s visit in December.