Basic Electronics Meetup?

[Keith Kolb]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to organize a basic electronics meetup, and I wanted to get
a feel for how much interest there would be, what is a reasonable fee
for materials if the meetup involves a build, and what would you like
to build? It could be something for an arduino to control or something
stand-alone like a power supply. Ideas?

[Henry]

I'd like to get something to move. Perhaps an intro to motion
control, voltage required?, what batteries to use? power supply
considerations? safety concerns? how to get the arduino to move
wirelessly? motors, wheels etc.

[Camile Orillaneda]

I'd like to be able to build something with an Arduino board without having it attached to my laptop. I'd be nice to take it from the prototype stage to the "final" stage, soldered and with another power source (batteries?). Basically, everything that Henry mentioned!

It might be cool to be able to experiment with taking data from the Arduino/sensors/etc... and having a visual representation of it on the computer screen, perhaps displayed using Processing.

--
onebitincrement.com
camiori.com/blog

[Craig Louis]

Motion, absolutely of interest to me as well.

Camile Orillaneda wrote, On 04-Mar-2012 13:14:
> I'd like to be able to build something with an Arduino board without
> having it attached to my laptop. I'd be nice to take it from the
> prototype stage to the "final" stage, soldered and with another power
> source (batteries?). Basically, everything that Henry mentioned!
>
> It might be cool to be able to experiment with taking data from the
> Arduino/sensors/etc... and having a visual representation of it on the
> computer screen, perhaps displayed using Processing.
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 12:51 PM, Henry <homa...@gmail.com
> <mailto:homa...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> I'd like to get something to move. Perhaps an intro to motion
> control, voltage required?, what batteries to use? power supply
> considerations? safety concerns? how to get the arduino to move
> wirelessly? motors, wheels etc.
>
> On Mar 4, 6:15 am, Keith Kolb <hapkidoke...@gmail.com

> <mailto:hapkidoke...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I'd like to organize a basic electronics meetup, and I wanted
> to get
> > a feel for how much interest there would be, what is a reasonable fee
> > for materials if the meetup involves a build, and what would you like
> > to build? It could be something for an arduino to control or
> something
> > stand-alone like a power supply. Ideas?
>
>
>
>
> --

> onebitincrement.com <http://onebitincrement.com>
> camiori.com/blog <http://camiori.com/blog>

[Steve]

I'm interested in the basic electronics meet up.  I like what I am hearing from all of you.  Having stuff for the Arduino and using sensor and motion control is what I'd like to work on also.  I'm OK with spending up to maybe $50 for materials.

[Keith Kolb]

Motion is very tricky. It wouldn't be that hard to hook up a motor to
a battery and let 'er rip, but there would be no control over it. To
control it, you'd have to have a program on your arduino that makes it
autonomous, which involves not only motors and batteries but sensors
and lots and lots of code. OR you'd have to have some sort of wireless
interface to control your arduino remotely, which means you'd have to
have some sort of wireless shield like a bluetooth or xgbee, and lots
and lots and lots more code. It doesn't make for a good project for
beginners, especially if you want to understand anything about what's
going on.

But to take a step in that direction, I think building a small power
supply and/or a battery pack would be a good beginning project.

[Gene Dahilig]

I'd be interested as well.  My electronics background is virtually nil, so any additional info would be good thing.

-- 

Gene Dahilig

Sent with Sparrow

[Craig Louis]

This kind of advice is valuable. While I'd like to get a robotic arm
waving a flag, or pointing to programmed directions, if that kind of
thing is premature for beginners, absolutely let's do what makes sense
and is likely to be successful.

[Homan Chou]

Even if we don't get as far as building a moving robot in the next meetup, I'm happy with working at little pieces of the puzzle so we keep building upon our familiarity and understanding.

Namely I want to explore:

1) How to power the arduino without a USB connect to my laptop.  What options do we have for power supply?

2) How much voltage do we need to do that?  

3) What happens if there is too much voltage, and how do we prevent that from happening?  Power regulator?

4) How to turn on and off and reverse a motor using the arduino?

5) If a powerful motor takes more juice than 5 volts, how do we power it if the arduino has only max 5V output? 

6) Can a single power supply power both the "brain" (the arduino), and the "muscle", the motor that requires more than 5 volts?  Can that be done with a voltage divider?

7) How would you scale up and down the juice flowing into the motor (varying the motor speed) using the arduino?

8) Be able to hook up any sensor (say, a light sensor) and view the serial analog input.

9) With the data from the sensor, code a simple condition to turn on or off the motor based on the sensor value for a certain threshold.

10) With the data from light sensor, code a condition to vary motor speed proportional to light received.

Something along those lines...  What do you think Keith?  Is it enough exercise material to discuss for one meetup?  Will you be leading us?

As I mentioned before we have maybe 2-3 months where we can continue to use the "garage".  We should try to pack as many of these hands-on sessions as we can there and take advantage of it.  How is this Sunday for everyone?

Homan

[Amy Wood]

I would also be interested in this class. I think $50 would be appropriate.

Thanks,

Amy Wood

--

Director of High School Programs

Iridescent | www.iridescentlearning.org

532 W. 22nd St. | Los Angeles, CA 90007

a...@iridescentlearning.org

334-444-2713

I imagine  |  I invent  |  I engineer

[Gene Dahilig]

Homan's got a good point.  We should use the space while we can.  I'm up for a class this sunday.  Maybe we can use this space for the Soldering class, too?

One quick question: Michael Belanger talked (either on the meetup page or in class, I can't remember) about an Intermediate Arduino class.  Is this class it or is "Basic Electronics" a separate beasty altogether?

-- 

Gene

[Keith Kolb]

I won't be ready to present a class for another week or two. Need to write the course material, get a list of parts that will be needed, etc.

[Homan Chou]

I don't know if it's practical, but another thing we could try is to pool together our existing resources so we don't each individually have to invest in too many redundant accessories when we don't really know what it is we ultimately want to build yet.  

For example, we each already bought different arduino kits, each with varying extra small goodies.  Some of you must have motors or piezos/speakers (e.g. i don't have a motor or speaker, but i have a servo...).  Some of you have different electronic kits, or shields.

I have a copy of the "Getting Started with Arduino (2011)" pdf book.  

If you don't mind having a rather informal get together every Sunday (how about after 1pm that way everyone has eaten and we don't have to break for lunch and cleanup afterwards), we could just plunge exercise after exercise through the book.  I know I'm not able to do all the exercises on my own because I lack the different parts, but as a group we can hopefully aggregate the more exotic parts needed for each project, and then just work through each exercise on a single or fewer workstations in teams.

This can be like coding dojo... where we're simply accumulating comfort and "muscle" memory through deliberate practice.  We could switch off who does the coding, who does the wiring, who does the explaining, QA etc so we all get active participation.

Here is the table of contents from the book (I'm guessing we could pick up at Chapter 3 or 4):

Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................... 1

■Chapter 2: Light ’Em Up ......................................................................................... 21

■Chapter 3: LED Effects ........................................................................................... 51

■Chapter 4: Simple Sounders and Sensors ............................................................. 81

■Chapter 5: Driving a DC Motor ............................................................................... 99

■Chapter 6: Binary Counters ................................................................................. 111

■Chapter 7: LED Displays ....................................................................................... 129

■Chapter 8: Liquid Crystal Displays ....................................................................... 171

■Chapter 9: Servos ................................................................................................ 191

■Chapter 10: Steppers and Robots ........................................................................ 207

■Chapter 11: Pressure Sensors ............................................................................. 231

■Chapter 12: Touch Screens .................................................................................. 259

■Chapter 13: Temperature Sensors ....................................................................... 279

■Chapter 14: Ultrasonic Rangefinders ................................................................... 293

■Chapter 15: Reading and Writing to an SD Card ................................................. 317

■Chapter 16: Making an RFID Reader .................................................................... 343

■Chapter 17: Communicating over Ethernet.......................................................... 359

Does this sound feasible?  It can keep us busy while the more experienced guys like Michael and Keith prepare their more formal lectures.

Homan

[Camile Orillaneda]

That sounds like a great idea! Other than marathon weekend, I'd be down. 

I have an extra Arduino board/kit with extra wires, motors, etc.. that I'd be willing to share if I could make it. 

Also, I left a message on MeetUp, but is there anyone going from the westside (Santa Monica) to Pasadena? Perhaps we can be 2.5 hour (yah, I know, right?) bus buddies or I can pay for gas or bake you cookies/cupcakes. (o:

--
onebitincrement.com
camiori.com/blog

[Laurel Bybee]

Has anyone in the group used the Lillypad? 

I'm hoping to create some interactive fabric :)

On Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 1:25 PM, Keith Kolb <hapkid...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Gene Dahilig]

Laurel,

I haven't used the Lillypad, but have you seen the tutorials at http://web.media.mit.edu/%7Eleah/LilyPad/?  It looks pretty comprehensive.  Topics including setup, LEDs, sound and sensors. 

gene

-- 

Gene Dahilig

Sent with Sparrow

[Steve]

I'm interested in showing up this Sunday.  I'm 90% sure I can be there for at least 4 hours.  I'm looking for the book you indicated, but can't find that edition that has 17 chapters!.  I only have the first edition of this book.  Where did you obtain it?  I'd be interested in getting the updated edition of this book to prepare materials and read ahead maybe.

Steve Lee

[Craig Louis]

I expect to be out of town this weekend, but I'd definitely come next weekend (I have to travel north every fifth or sixth weekend or so these days. Making sure my place in the trees isn't colonized by the forest creatures..)

I'm interested in Lilypad also. I'd like to create a self-reconfiguring flag of some sort, eventually.

Regular exercise sessions are a good idea, Homan.

[Homan Chou]

Sorry, the correct title is "Beginning Arduino".  Although there are many good books out there that we can use as exercise course material.

[Gene Dahilig]

Yeah, I noticed that.  It turns out that that book is actually "Beginning Arduino" by Michael McRoberts.  That's a good book.  I've done a few of the chapters.  Another book that I just got a couple of weeks ago is "Arduino Cookbook" Michael Margolis.  It's of the "cookbook" variety but has a ton of useful info.  It covers all the same as the "Beginning Arduino" book, but in recipe format with recipes like "Problem: You want to generate complex sounds similar to those used to produce electronic music.  Solution..."  600 pages with only 80 pages spent on the language(loops, strings, math, etc), the rest on recipes.

I'm also down for doing Sunday afternoon.  Homan, I think proposed 1pm-ish.  That would be perfect for me.  I could probably do 3 hours or so.  I've been in "Hunter-Gather" mode these last few weeks so I've picked up a few sensors, LED screens, 4 digit 7-segment LED displays that I've toyed with so I can bring them for folks to try out.

Anyways, count me in!

Gene

[luke latte]

KEITH - basic electronics is great idea... it's complimentary to some
of the other streams in LARobotics. i remember associate degree -
level electronics... DC.AC. analog. digital. amplifiers. MPU/
MCU........ very broad !! idea- how about we try to gauge audience
interest, like it was done at the "planning" meeting, and decide on
what 'BASIC' thing that will be taught. and so as not to lose the more
advanced audience members' interest, add to that a circuit; a
sketch; data recording; a sheild; etc.. so here's SOME IDEAS:

meetup 1 basic electronics.....1A] DC 1B] VOLTAGE DIVIDER
1C] sketch to alternate / switch various electronic gizmos on/off.
1D etc.
meetup 2 basic electronics.....2A] POWER SUPPLY circuit (like august
2011 meetup) 2B] motor 2C] arduino sketch
meetup 3 basic electronics.....3A] SENSORS 3B] sketch to do
environmental monitoring [temp.humidty.pressure...] 3C] record the
data
3D] sheild to shoot out
data to internet 3E] etc...
meetup 4 basic electronics.....etc

i think this approach is more fair to the instructor. you basically
need one core topic, one lesser easier topic, and then wing-it for the
rest if you run out of prep time.

other areas of interest: video / security / sensors / robotic
arms ....

HOMAN- i am willing to go through the exercises in the book with you.
logistically it may be hard to couple this undertaking on the same day
as Keith's class. but, it can be done. clear lines of "time"
demarcation would be good [instructor 1 is 10am to 2pm. book exercises
are 2pm -5pm etc].

EVERYBODY- The nature of meetup is such that there's some turn-over.
It seems we could be repeating our efforts, and we probably have to
live with some of that [the group recently already did a power supply
meetup(aug.2011)). I SUGGEST WE VIDEO-RECORD THE GET-TOGETHERS, and
video-edit them [<10 minutes each] and put them on you tube. maybe get
a video guy to do this; another reason to charge a small reasonable
fee to partake of 'LARobitics'! But the point with these videos is
that before a given meetup, we can refer the audience to the video's,
like a PREREQUISITE. hey wait a minute, you guys might be doing that
already... put up some 'prerequisites' for us !!!! ... oh god, i
have another idea here... how about we do the meetup simultaneously
as a live webinar ?? charge $$ ... go ahead, steal my idea.

I support there being a fee. if the facilitator / organizer is doing
all the work, they'll get burned out eventually. plus maybe we, the
audience, will get more regular meetups.

IN CONCLUSION, based on the reviews of the last meetup, i think
LARobotics probably is breaking some records !!!
let's work on CONTINUITY, to keep the ball rolling. regular monthly
meetups...

On Mar 5, 7:48 pm, Gene Dahilig <g...@dahilig.com> wrote:
> Yeah, I noticed that.  It turns out that that book is actually "Beginning Arduino" by Michael McRoberts.  That's a good book.  I've done a few of the chapters.  Another book that I just got a couple of weeks ago is "Arduino Cookbook" Michael Margolis.  It's of the "cookbook" variety but has a ton of useful info.  It covers all the same as the "Beginning Arduino" book, but in recipe format with recipes like "Problem: You want to generate complex sounds similar to those used to produce electronic music.  Solution..."  600 pages with only 80 pages spent on the language(loops, strings, math, etc), the rest on recipes.
>
> I'm also down for doing Sunday afternoon.  Homan, I think proposed 1pm-ish.  That would be perfect for me.  I could probably do 3 hours or so.  I've been in "Hunter-Gather" mode these last few weeks so I've picked up a few sensors, LED screens, 4 digit 7-segment LED displays that I've toyed with so I can bring them for folks to try out.
>
> Anyways, count me in!
>
> Gene
>
> On Mar 5, 2012, at 5:51 PM, Steve wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > I'm interested in showing up this Sunday.  I'm 90% sure I can be there for at least 4 hours.  I'm looking for the book you indicated, but can't find that edition that has 17 chapters!.  I only have the first edition of this book.  Where did you obtain it?  I'd be interested in getting the updated edition of this book to prepare materials and read ahead maybe.
>
> > Steve Lee
>
> > On Monday, March 5, 2012 2:26:38 PM UTC-8, Homan wrote:
> > I don't know if it's practical, but another thing we could try is to pool together our existing resources so we don't each individually have to invest in too many redundant accessories when we don't really know what it is we ultimately want to build yet.
>
> > For example, we each already bought different arduino kits, each with varying extra small goodies.  Some of you must have motors or piezos/speakers (e.g. i don't have a motor or speaker, but i have a servo...).  Some of you have different electronic kits, or shields.
>
> > I have a copy of the "Getting Started with Arduino (2011)" pdf book.
>
> > If you don't mind having a rather informal get together every Sunday (how about after 1pm that way everyone has eaten and we don't have to break for lunch and cleanup afterwards), we could just plunge exercise after exercise through the book.  I know I'm not able to do all the exercises on my own because I lack the different parts, but as a group we can hopefully aggregate the more exotic parts needed for each project, and then just work through each exercise on a single or fewer workstations in teams.
>
> > This can be like coding dojo... where we're simply accumulating comfort and "muscle" memory through deliberate practice.  We could switch off who does the coding, who does the wiring, who does the explaining, QA etc so we all get active participation.
>
> > Here is the table of contents from the book (I'm guessing we could pick up at Chapter 3 or 4):
>

> > Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................... ................ 1
>
> > ■Chapter 2: Light ’Em Up ........................................................................... .............. 21
>
> > ■Chapter 3: LED Effects ........................................................................... ................ 51

>
> > ■Chapter 4: Simple Sounders and Sensors ............................................................. 81
>

> > ■Chapter 5: Driving a DC Motor ........................................................................... .... 99
>
> > ■Chapter 6: Binary Counters ........................................................................... ...... 111
>
> > ■Chapter 7: LED Displays ........................................................................... ............ 129

>
> > ■Chapter 8: Liquid Crystal Displays ....................................................................... 171
>

> > ■Chapter 9: Servos ........................................................................... ..................... 191

>
> > ■Chapter 10: Steppers and Robots ........................................................................ 207
>

> > ■Chapter 11: Pressure Sensors ........................................................................... .. 231
>
> > ■Chapter 12: Touch Screens ........................................................................... ....... 259

>
> > ■Chapter 13: Temperature Sensors ....................................................................... 279
>
> > ■Chapter 14: Ultrasonic Rangefinders ................................................................... 293
>
> > ■Chapter 15: Reading and Writing to an SD Card ................................................. 317
>
> > ■Chapter 16: Making an RFID Reader .................................................................... 343
>
> > ■Chapter 17: Communicating over Ethernet.......................................................... 359
>
> > Does this sound feasible?  It can keep us busy while the more experienced guys like Michael and Keith prepare their more formal lectures.
>
> > Homan
>

> > On Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 1:25 PM, Keith Kolb <hapkidoke...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I won't be ready to present a class for another week or two. Need to write the course material, get a list of parts that will be needed, etc.
>

[Homan Chou]

Luke, I'm proposing Arduino "Open Lab Time" (hosted each Sunday), to be used as an alternative event when there are no instructor led events going on.  When Michael or Keith or other instructors have a concrete event planned, then I will of course give them priority to use the garage facility on that day and the lab time will be postponed to the next following weekend when there is again nothing else going on.

I have added the suggested event on the meetup site.  

http://www.meetup.com/LARoboticsClub/events/55228952/

RSVP if you are interested!

Homan

[Shang-Lin Chen]

I'm interested in this class, but I can't make it this Sunday.

Shang-Lin Chen