Day 8: servo control and sound

Today, I learned how to make a potentiometer rotate a servo to a certain degree based off of the position of the potentiometer. Next I learned how to make arduino produce different tones and noises through a piezo sounder.

Controlling a servo by the position of a potentiometer

Working on lighting a LED to the tempo of a tune Arduino is playing

Day 7: Bi-polar motor

Today, I finally got the bi-polar circuit to work using Arduino. It works by driving the motor in one direction then reverses the polarity using a relay and drives the motor in the other direction. After I got done with that, I worked on my toy project.

Bi-Polar motor circuit

Day 6: Darlington and driving motors

Today, we learned how to use the 2N3904 transistor and 1N4001 transistor to light a Christmas light, next we made a Darlington circuit to drive the motor of our toys. We learned about the TIP120 transistor and that it has a Darlington circuit built inside of it.

Using the 2N3904 transistor to drive the light.

Darlington circuit to drive light and put a higher resistor to dim light.

Driving the light with a TIP120 transistor.

Day 5: Continuation of arduino and beginning of hacking toy.

Today, I was able to finish a couple circuits dealing with Arduino acting as a switch to turn a led on and off and using a light dependent resistor to control the behavior of two leds using "if then" commands. Last, I was finally able to start hacking a mechatronic toy to be controlled by Arduino and do things it was not purposed to do.

Learning the program code of arduino to act as a digital switch.

using a photoresistor to turn on or off an led based off of amount of light

Only the yellow led is on at medium light

Only the red led is on at low light

Both leds are off at no light levels

In the process of hacking toy

Day 4:Squarebot, transistors, and arduino

Today, I finished building my square bot, learned about the basics of transistors and arduino.

Square Bot

LED turned on and off by pressing toggle switch

Using fingers to complete the circuit and light the led

Circuit to mimic the car lights in night rider.

Day 3:Switches and Relays

Today we learned about switches and relays and continued working on our square bots.

LED controlled my two switches

Switching on and off two LED's using a relay and toggle switch.

Added a electrolytic capacitor to the circuit and now the red light flickers on and off very fast.

The progress so far completed on my square bot.

Day 1: Learning to solder and light a LED.

Today, we practiced soldering some electronic components onto an old board. I learned the importance of using flux before soldering because it helps the soldering iron to conduct heat and it cleans the copper. We soldered some wires together. Then we modified a phone charger to be used to power a breadboard.

Practice Board

Three wires soldered together and then heated shrink tubing on.

Modified power supply

Circuit to power a LED

Day 2: Learning the DMM.

Today, we learned how to use a multimeter to test for continuity, voltage, and resistance. We learned about two different kinds of power supplies AC and DC, regulated and unregulated. We then built a couple different circuits to see how different resistance changes the brightness of a LED. Last, we inventoried our vex kits.

AC and DC power supplies(top left), DMM(top right), circuit board used to test continuity on(bottom left).

Picture of the photoresistor I used to test the resistance of.

Circuits used to see how resistance affects the brightness, experimenting with a potentiometer, circuit on top is using 220 ohm resistor which was close to 250 ohms, to try and get around 20 mA going through the LED.