I was excited at the prospect of playing with wires and arduinos at first, but once I started sitting down with my first assignment and looking at the schematics… I was shaken. It’s been a long time since I’ve entered a space that felt so unfamiliar. While sitting in the shop going over my readings, I looked to my classmate next to me with dead eyes. “My background is in painting…” how did I find myself here?
I wish I could paint the resistors instead of connecting them. There’s a small fear inside me where I worry I’ll irrevocably damage the materials, but I know the stakes here are low. We are students. We are brought here to fail. Through failures come successes.
I started out by laying out the items all in front of me to differentiate which was which. I borrowed my dad's multimeter to help get started with the lab at home.
Next, I used the multimeter to measure the continuity and make sure all my tools were working. Very quickly, I realized I was missing some tools and decided to continue when I’m back on the floor for pcomp help from the residents.
I wired up a circuit to connect to the Arduino (which connected to my laptop as a power source). For the longest time, it seemed unclear why my LED lights weren’t working. I asked Kaye to take a look and after some inspection, they found that the top red wire wasn’t connecting the positive to the correct power source node on the Arduino. Once one LED was working, I wired up another LED to sit in series with the other one. I noticed the lights seemed a little dimmer, perhaps because the voltage provided was being split up into two loads instead of one.
Next, I added a normally open push button. It was exciting to see the LED’s flicker based on my interaction. After the one with the first LED worked, I added another LED to sit in parallel.
Next, I added a potentiometer (the three prongs representing input, output, and ground respectively) in place of where I had the resister. The more I turned the knob right, the higher the resistance got and the dimmer the LED became. The more I turned the knob left, the lower the resistance got and the brighter the LED became.
Three push buttons set up in series. All buttons must be pushed for the LED to light.
Three push buttons set up in parallel. As long as one of the buttons are pushed, the LED will light.
After experimenting with the LED lights, I wanted to try out using a DC power source as well (not just the Arduino). It’s very likely I will want to demo a project without leaving my laptop behind, so setting up a project that could be connected to a standard outlet will be good to know. I forgot to take a picture but I disconnected the micro USB cable and added a voltage regulator (IGO), which then connected to wires of the DC power cable adapter. which connected to the DC power cable, which connected to the outlet.
At this point, I got to the DC Motor part of the lab. I attempted to connect the component, but somehow it failed to spin. The LED light is still shining when I press the button so I know that the circuit is properly closed. It seems that something about the DC motor is not connected properly. It will be good to get an answer during my class tomorrow. Over time, I hope to be more proficient at using the multimeter and reading/writing schematics.
