For the last month or month and a half we worked on programming and circuits. We spent this time, working on circuits, bread board circuits, arduino coding, and our own robot art show. It was a very fun but slightly complicated unit. It went as follows.
WORK
First we were tasked to complete a packet to work on basic circuits. These consisted of just batteries and things to activate in series or even in parallel. As we complete pages the circuits get more difficult to complete. Our final task was called the blinky light quiz. This consisted of looking at circuit diagram then having to build it. It was a little complicated but in the end we got to learn to read circuit diagrams. That test also allowed no coding, so we had to use timers, resistors, LEDs, and lots of wires.
This led into how we could simplify the wiring but include coding. We just brushed the surface in the world of coding with arduino. We had a guidebook to reference to build the arduino sketches. These sketches had corresponding code that we annotated and dissected to learn the use of certain code. Next we had to take the newly learned code to create a functioning robot. This had us first create a circuit on a bred board using any components that we wanted. My group thought about the use of robots in the advertising in the future. We picked McDonalds. We had a buzzer to perform the jingle, leds to light up in an M shape, and then a LCD screen to display the slogan.
Lastly, we worked on creating a microgrid for the entire town of Novato. We learned about alternative sources of energy generation and got to visit a local microgrid that was so impressive that it was completely self sufficient. This meant that if the connection to the power grid was cut off, they could still have plenty of power due to the amount that they are capable of creating. We walked around and saw all components of their system and learned the major idea of having no single point of failure. We then were to design and calculate the cost of our own micro grid. This was no easy task. we needed to find how many kilowatt hours Novato used, then figure out how to create that much energy. My group personally used solar panels and wind turbines as our main producers. Our location was on Mt. Burdell. It was a moderately windy location and it received a great amount of sunlight, thus why we chose to use solar panels and wind turbines.
Reflection
This project was a great learning opportunity for me seeing as I have never coded nor used this kind of electrical work. I have done home electrical work with my dad but this was slightly different. It wasn't easy for me to grasp a lot of the stuff that we learned at the pace everyone else did but I did my best and in the end I understood it. This was a good opportunity for me to work on my work ethic and productivity, when I wasn't sure of how to do something I really had to push myself to figure out or ask for help. Either way I feel l did pretty well and I was happy with my work.