In this week we started to work with Ian, he helped us to understand how Arduino world is structured.
Before i start to talk about this i want to suggest a tutorial to watch, i watched it before these Arduino lessons because it explains all the background about Arduino and all the story of how it is being made. I’m really proud that it is an Italian invention!
We started this route with Ian giving us a questionnaire to answer.
Then we collegate the Arduino (or Elegoo in my case, it is basically the same) to the computer!
Here we started to develop our first sketch on the Arduino software.
The code that you can modify.
/*
Blink
Turns an LED on for one second, then off for one second, repeatedly.
Most Arduinos have an on-board LED you can control. On the UNO, MEGA and ZERO
it is attached to digital pin 13, on MKR1000 on pin 6. LED_BUILTIN is set to
the correct LED pin independent of which board is used.
If you want to know what pin the on-board LED is connected to on your Arduino
model, check the Technical Specs of your board at:
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Products
modified 8 May 2014
by Scott Fitzgerald
modified 2 Sep 2016
by Arturo Guadalupi
modified 8 Sep 2016
by Colby Newman
This example code is in the public domain.
http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Blink
*/
// the setup function runs once when you press reset or power the board
void setup() {
// initialize digital pin LED_BUILTIN as an output.
pinMode(LED_BUILTIN, OUTPUT);
}
// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, HIGH); // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
delay(1000); // wait for a second
digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, LOW); // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
delay(1000); // wait for a second
}
Resistors
I din’t added resistors to this project because Arduino should have his own safety system, but circuits need resistors for all manner of reasons. Resistors are used to provide biasing voltages that control the gain of amplifiers, they are used to limit currents to safe levels and prevent overheating, they provide a way to sense current and voltage for circuit control and more.
Example of a resistor.
With this kind of program we were able to turn on a led light with 1000 delay.
Delay 500
Delay 10, too fast that you cannot even see when the light is off.
Delay 20, this is the effect that we was looking for, like stroboscopic.
After this we programmed Arduino for make him accept 3 LEDs!
In this week we are learning how to use the CAM mode in Fusion 360 for CNC machine and how to create a female mould tool for a silicone resin injection, so we are able to create a solid part (We’re are not gonna get the real solid part now for reasons of force majeure). First of all i started to do the mould design in Fusion.
Then i moved from design to manufacture and i started to setup my stock, it is 50 x 50 x 10 mm (x,y,z), and the final part is 30 x 30 x 5 mm.
After this i had to setup all the operations settings as tool, geometry, heights, passes and linking.
I generate the tool path and post processed.
Once everything was settled i started the most interesting part, the simulation!
During the simulation i noticed that i missed the 2D pocket and the 2D counter, so i added it to my project, but instead of the 2D pocket i used engrave because it’s better for the text. I had some issues with engrave because my tool was not the right one, so i just edit it and changed all the settings and finally it worked!
Here i added a video of me working with the CNC Machine for the DP402 project.
In this lesson we added an OLED display in our Microbit system, it is used for reading information as temperature, light, drawings etc..
So i started with collegate the wires on the breadboard to the OLED display.
Then we had to create the code, in this way we can program the system and make wathever we want. The good thing to work with an open source system is that you can be creative and innovative, and do something new that is never been done before!
The code for attach the OLED display to the Microbit.
Once the code is ready you can collegate the Microbit to the computer and add it to the system. In this case we wanted to read the temperature with the Microbit, as we know there is a sensor inside that give us this opportunity. If everything is collegate in the right way this should be the final results!
Here is shown the Microbit connected to the OLED display, and with the program that we embedded before we can measure the temperature.
Making a website was our first project in the XE404 module, it will be used as a method of documenting our progress. Searching around WordPress themes i choose the Aaron theme, i think that the website look more professional with this one.
After the decision about the theme i had to choose one representative image and the background color that i would use for it. I choose the blue because is being proven by science that blue can have a sedative effect, calm the mind and can actually reduce blood pressure and body temperature. Human resources specialists propose blue for an interview or first meeting – which inspires trust, maturity and reliability.
This is the shade of blue that i used.
I added also this header background image that i think represent the soul of the XE404 module, a performant and appealing electronic component!
How to add contents?
Here is where the blog takes form, inside this internal area we can add contents to our pages or posts.
If you click edit post (up on the left) on the page that you want to modify
you will see the actual page writing.
For a more complete website we need to follow some rules, the first one is to add categories and menus for share the contents in an easyest way.
A good explaination of what a diagram for a website is:
As i was saying before we need categories, menus and pages for populate our website.
For this we need to go in the customise section.
Here we can see all the aspects for customise our website.
We’re gonna click on the menu section in order to add posts and pages.
These are all my pages, and if you look properly you will see that all the week posts for XE are all under the XE404 page.
If we want to add a new post we have to click on add items
At this point you can choose if you want to add a page or a post.
Then you can go into the dashboard section that is to the left of the customise one, and you can see all the pages, posts and categories and you can modify them.
All my pages in this image.
How to add media?
Let’ s say that you want to add images or videos in your website, it is really easy to do, in the same page where we are adding text to our post you will see the add media section.
Then you have to click on upload, and you have to check in you computer the image file that you want to add to the post. After this just click on insert into post.
Adding a video is even more easy, i just click on insert video from URL, in the same page, and then i have to paste a video from youtube or somewhere else and it will be added to the page.
Website icon
A website icon is important in a website, it represent your brand image or logo. I added it from the same customise menu / site identity / site icon
How the site icon look like.
Widgets
A widget is an element of a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays information or provides a specific way for a user to interact with the operating system or an application.
Widgets include icons, pull-down menus, buttons, selection boxes, progress indicators, on-off checkmarks, scroll bars, windows, window edges (that let you resize the window), toggle buttons, form, and many other devices for displaying information and for inviting, accepting, and responding to user actions.
In this week we started to use BBC Micro:bit that is an embedded system. The first thing to do is program what you want to do with the Microbit, and you can do that on the Microsoft website “Make Code”.
Here is shown the Microbit plugged into the computer with the program that i have written, it turn on the leds of the microbit for make a number 1 shape.
This image show when i started the first approach with the sealing of a component!
Below we have some examples of what you can do with Microbit, in this case we create a smiley and sad face which works with the buttons A and B or A+B pressed.
Button A pressed give us a smiley face and B pressed a sad face
A+B give us some mixed face between sad and smiley
The code for the smiley face.
Then we worked on the (LDR) Light dependent resistors, that are basically light sensitive components most often used to indicate the presence / absence of light.
(How Microbit should be collegate with the LDR)
The simple code that i have made for the LDR.
The complete circuit together.
These video are the demonstration of how the LDR work with a Microbit.
In this week we are learning how to use the CAM mode in Fusion 360 for CNC machine and how to create a female mould tool for a silicone resin injection, so we are able to create a solid part (We’re are not gonna get the real solid part now for reasons of force majeure). First of all i started to do the mould design in Fusion.
Then i moved from design to manufacture and i started to setup my stock, it is 50 x 50 x 10 mm (x,y,z), and the final part is 30 x 30 x 5 mm.
After this i had to setup all the operations settings as tool, geometry, heights, passes and linking.
I generate the tool path and post processed.
Once everything was settled i started the most interesting part, the simulation!
During the simulation i noticed that i missed the 2D pocket and the 2D counter, so i added it to my project, but instead of the 2D pocket i used engrave because it’s better for the text. I had some issues with engrave because my tool was not the right one, so i just edit it and changed all the settings and finally it worked!
In this week we studied about 3D printing and scanning. Due to Covid-19 we didn’t had the chance to finalize this project with the 3D printer, but just with the scanning.
For this project i used an app for scanning called QLONE
Basically with this app you need a printed foil like this one showed below, and then you have to positionate your 3D object in the middle of it.
I have spent a lot of time for the scan, i had to redo it like 5 or 6 times because the feature is not really intuitive. Also the light is important, if the model is not illuminated properly the app can’t see the shape of the object.
The effective scanning.
I used this Homer Simpson figure for my scan.
The results that i had with this scanner, i can say it is nothing short of fun…
That is embarassing.. ahahah
So i just thinked that the Homer figure was too complex for the app, and i just tried with another more simple shape.
Same results, even worst in a sense. It was a Rubik Cube..
