Arduino Physical Computing 101.

So I went to the Arduino 1 day workshop last week and really enjoyed it. I had never previously used a micro controller (Arduino) before and found it really interesting due to the possibilities with what you can do with it. I don't think that I have touched a breadboard or played with electronics since my GCSE's. And I have a very basic understanding of java. But it was fine it was a basics workshop aimed at beginners although there were some very experienced people from all kind of backgrounds me also being the youngest there. One of the guys helping out used to work on the movement of eyes of the puppets for the Jim Henson Company which was cool.

Any way for 60 squid I got an Arduino (Duemilanove) a breadboard a bag of wires and a bag of resistors and sensors which consist of switches, light sensitive resistors and a tilt switches.



The Arduino itself is quite aesthetically pleasing, it is well made and quite solid.



The name came from a local bar in Italy, where it is made and this is made quite obvious on flip side of the micro controller.



The practical side of the workshop started off by making an LED blink and controlling the speed of the blink, and throughout the day it got a bit more complicated with more complicated circuits and using different sensors. But overall it was really interesting to see what it could do first hand and that there is a different way of thought bringing things away form the screen and in to the real world.

One of the many basic things that I have managed to do is to light 3 LED's red,green and blue alternatively and controlling the speed.



At the moment I am trying to hack a cheap clock that I bought from poverty aid, I want to make it tick fast slow and backwards and use it for a project.

I'm also reading this:



and listening to this:

ALVA NOTO AND RYUICHI SAKAMOTO - UTP

weyyyyyyy

New website up and running, not quite finished though, but I'm linking it so it will hopefully come up in google.

www.samputera.co.uk