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I also attended another workshop hosted by Rob Canning on Arduino. Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform, a series of micro-controller boards with the software to program them. It can read its environment by receiving input from various detectors and change its surroundings, such as controlling lights or temperature. It is intended for artists, and designers; anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

Arduino can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights and motors. The microcontroller on the board is programmed using the Arduino programming language (based on Wiring) and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing). Arduino projects can be stand-alone or they can communicate with software running on a computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP).

The boards can be built by hand or purchased pre-assembled; the software can be downloaded for free. The hardware reference designs (CAD files) are available under an open-source license, which are free to adapt to the users needs.

Arduino can be used for things such as collecting data or controlling lights, as well as many other things. Arduino can record a wide range of data tracked by sensors through coding.

This can be seen in the video below where an Arduino board has been used with a Temperature sensor to monitor the temperature.

Experimenting with an Arduino Board:

For this exercise, we split into pairs. Once the Arduinos were built we started to connect them to the computers by using the Arduino Library, so we could visualise the data on the screen.

We began by adding 2 LED lights to our bread board and used wires to connect them to our Arduino board. We also added a resistor, making sure the grounds were properly connected to the Arduino board, so that the current would flow and the LED lights would come on. For this circuit to run, we had to use a Blink code, which was programmed correctly for the board to work. This is a photograph of the codes for the LED lights.

Next we added another code, which represented the push button. The push button controls and turns the LED lights on and off. This is a photograph of the codes for the push button.

Below is a photograph of the outcome of our Arduino board and bread board showing the connected LED lights and push button.