Electricity & programming
For our electricity and programming unit, we got introduced to coding and electronic concepts. We were given a packet of activities to complete and have checked. Our end goal was to make a light show or robot art to present after learning our new skill. We used many wires and got used to the electricity part before we got into coding the lights. Then, we got new laptops that had a program called Arduino. With Arduino, we could code and use the breadboard provided to change the way the lights worked and how they flashed. There were many, many challenges as this one was very new for some of us.
concepts
Circuit- complete loop of conductive material from one end of a power source to the other.
Series circuit- Voltage gets split, current remains the same.
Parallel circuit - Current gets split, voltage remains the same.
Current- measured by an ammeter in amps. The "flow" of electricity though a circuit.
Resistance- a measurement of the difficulty encountered by a power source in forcing electric current through an electrical circuit. (Resistance is measured in ohms.)
Voltage- measured by a voltmeter in volts. The potential energy difference across a resistor. The "push" of electricity.
Breadboard- a board for making a experimental model of an electric circuit. We built our circuit on the breadboard and hooked it up to a computer.
Kirchhoff's Law- the sum of all currents flowing into a node is zero.
Ohm's Law- Velocity= (Current)x(Restistance) (V=IR) States that the current though a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the potential difference across the two points.
Series circuit- Voltage gets split, current remains the same.
Parallel circuit - Current gets split, voltage remains the same.
Current- measured by an ammeter in amps. The "flow" of electricity though a circuit.
Resistance- a measurement of the difficulty encountered by a power source in forcing electric current through an electrical circuit. (Resistance is measured in ohms.)
Voltage- measured by a voltmeter in volts. The potential energy difference across a resistor. The "push" of electricity.
Breadboard- a board for making a experimental model of an electric circuit. We built our circuit on the breadboard and hooked it up to a computer.
Kirchhoff's Law- the sum of all currents flowing into a node is zero.
Ohm's Law- Velocity= (Current)x(Restistance) (V=IR) States that the current though a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the potential difference across the two points.
reflection
Going into this, I have had no past experience with electricity and coding, because of this, it was definitely one of the most challenging projects that we had to do, because we had to learn two different things, both coding and electricity wiring. But there were also many things that we did well, but many more things that we didn't do so well. Starting out, we had lots of teamwork, we worked together really well, thinking of ideas on how to make the bulb light up with the one wire. After we started to learn how the wiring worked, and where everything went, then the coding became an issue. Because the coding was already done for you with the Arduino program, we didn't have to read the code and understand what it did, because it was all completed for you. So we only skimmed through all of the code and only slightly understood it. When it was time to code our own, we had only a slight amount of knowledge of how to code, but with a bit of other code that could be studied we managed to make a pretty cool light show with sounds. The 2nd thing that was hard to overcome was the Redboard understanding, we had to learn another board as long as how the breadboard worked, it was all confusing. But as I said, once you learn it, it becomes massively easier to finish quickly. I thought this one was challenging but we learned many different things in a short period of time.