assignments

Getting Started

• Browse through the links on the resources page.
• Tell us about your background, interests, and related experiences, if any.
• Download the Zap notes on basic circuits, and start reading them. We'll discuss this material next week. (If you're accessing the server from off campus you'll need need to ask Jim about access to those notes.)
• From your reading of the notes, or from any online source of information on basic circuits and/or electricity, or from your high school science background, answer the following questions. (To find online sources, google 'circuits' or 'tutorial circuits' or any of terms below.)
  • What is a 'Volt'?
  • What is an 'Amp'?
  • What is a 'Watt'?
  • What is an 'Ohm'?
  • Describe how you'd build something in the lab that has all these things.
  • In this thing that you've built, how are these concepts related? How could each be measured? Be as specific as you can.

Analyzing Circuits

• Read Adafruit's multimeter tutorial.
• Work through the circuits here. Build 'em (except the 1st), and measure things with the multimeters. Do the math where you can.
• Build a circuit that lights an LED. How much power is the light using?

Arduino Basics

• Create a CircuitLab account.
• Connect the Arduino to the breadboard and get the 01.Basics > Blink example sketch working with an external LED.
• Adapt the blink sketch to alternate between lighting a green and a red LED. Draw the circuit on CircuitLab. Start by going to https://www.circuitlab.com/circuit/j8j7ba/arduino-leonardo/ , click 'Open in editor' and save it under a new name on your account. Upload the code and embed the CircuitLab schematic on the assignment page.

• Get the 03.Analog > AnalogInput example sketch up and running.
• Adapt your alternating LED program to use a potentiometer to set the speed at which the LEDs alternate. Upload the code and a schematic.

Square Wave and Capacitors

• This is an open ended investigation - use the questions here as a starting point to play around and then describe what you did.
• First task : create square waves of various frequencies
  • Can you do this with the function generator?
  • Can you do with an Arduino?
  • What do you think the frequency is? How do you know? What is the (high, low) range you can get?
• Second task: observe the square wave, and measure the voltage & frequency
  • With an oscilloscope? (We have a big one and a little on in the lab.)
  • With the SERIAL line on someone else's arduino? The same arduino? For what frequencies can this work?
  • With a speaker / headphones / buzzer ? If you can hear it, can you find the frequency? What range does this work?
• Third task: Put a capacitor and resistor in series, and look at the low or high "pass" output as discussed in class.
  • What combinations of freq, R, capacitor give capacitors that are much slower than the square wave? Much faster? About the same time variability? What does the output look like in these cases?
• Finally: discuss an interesting case or two, calculating the capacitor's response time and explaining how that's consistent with the square wave generated and with what you observe.

midterm proposal

• Build and test the (motor, transistor, diode) circuit that Alex described on Monday. Describe what you see, and upload the code that you used.
• Propose a midterm demonstration to write-up.
  • See the examples page for ideas.
  • The write-up is due the following week, Mon Oct 8, and should include a description of what you did, the code, a circuit diagram, and a sketch or pictures of the device in action.
  • The goal is to demonstrate your understanding by illustrating the basic arduino scenario: get input from some physical thing, notice it change in the software, and send the output to some other physical thing.
  • Expect to show your device to the class.

midterm demo

• Create a "gadget demo" illustrating the software & hardware ideas we've been developing this term.
• Your submission should include
  • a description of what you did, what was hard and/or easy, and a bibliography of what parts and online/offline resources you used
  • a circuit diagram
  • source code
• Be ready to show this to the rest of the class.
• Your grade will be based on the following evaluation categories :
  • coolness : the idea itself, including its difficulty and planning
  • mastery : how well your understanding of the course material is shown
  • completeness : how well it works, how polished and error-free is it
  • support : README overview, api docs, implementation comments, tests, sample output, bibliography of online and offline materials used, version history, ...
• Questions? Ask.

thinking about term projects

• Propose three different possible term projects that interest you. For each include
  • a reference to a (at least somewhat related) project
  • a parts list, including where they parts can be obtained and approximate costs
  • a brief (paragraph or two) discussion
• Coming up: final project proposal in a week (presumably one of these three, with more details and specifics of getting parts, after feedback from us)

final project proposal

• Flesh out one of the projects you proposed last week with a full parts list.
• Find more resources for your project and/or related ideas, particularly folks who've done similar things but also product data sheets and the like.
• Start thinking about code and the interfaces.
• Check in with Alex about parts and alternatives.
• Order your parts, either alone or with others, and get started. Post links to parts ordered.

progress report 1

• What is your progress on your final project?
• Give a synopsis of a similar project someone else has done, and be ready to give a presentation on it in class.

progress report 2

• Tell us how your project is progressing. By now you should have things well underway...

progress report 3

• Last progress report before 1st draft.
• What is working?

rough draft

• Submit for comments a draft of the documentation for your project: circuit diagrams, images, discussion ... (see below)
• Also submit a description what is working and what isn't.
• Work in class on what's left to do.

class presentations

• last class
• come with your project, prepared to do a show'n'tell

final project

• deadline for submission of final project; should include
  • paper describing what you did
  • parts list, URLs for where you ordered and/or scrounged what
  • images and/or videos
  • circuit diagram
  • discussion of what worked, what didn't work, what you do differently ...
  • enough for someone else to do what you did

course grade

• a place for Jim to give overall feedback