Week 2 - In Class Activities & Assignment

This week, we did a couple more activities regarding Arduino. The two main activities we did was a button/toggle and the use of photo resistors. In the first activity, we were to create a button/toggle on the Arduino and breadboard so the LED light would turn on. From following the schematic on the overhead and with some tweaking and small code, we were able turn on the LED light by pressing the button. Below is what our Arduino board looked like when we were able to produce the light.




After the first little exercise, we were then ask to play around with it and change the code. What we did was add a delay to the light when you press and hold the button. So, instead of turning it on and off when you press the button, the LED light will have a blinking pattern (delay) when held and off when you let go. Below is a small recorded video of how we changed our Arduino board and what it does.

After the first activity, we were given a second activity which was to generally to do the same thing but play around with photo resistors. We were given a photo resistor that looks similar to a magnet. What we were asked to do was use the photo resistor to turn on the LED light on the Arduino board. Similar to the first activity, we looked at the schematic, tweaked the board and used some code and was able to get the LED light to blink which was dependant on the photo resistor. Basically, how fast/slow the LED light blinks is dependant on how much light the photo resistor is getting. The less light the photo resistor is getting, the slower the blinking of the light and vice versa. Below is a short video we recorded of our Arduino exercise with the photo resistor.

Next on the list was the homework. Our assignment was to explore the use of fabrics and conductive materials without the need to solder metal parts. We were asked to use different types of fabric to make a system with combination of LEDs, conductive materials and resistors.
We were told to experiment and see what can be wearable on our bodies; testing out flexibility on our bodies with circuits. After our brainstorming, we decided to create a Mario Mushroom patch that is supposedly 'iron-able' onto shirts/sweaters. We decided to complete the circuit under the mushroom so its not visible when the user looks at it. We put 3 LED lights on each of the dots on top of the mushroom. When the user presses the eyes, the conductive material (copper tape) underneath the eyes will touch with another conductive material underneath it (conductive thread and copper tape) and thus the 3 LEDs will light up. We were able to cut up all the fabric and created our base mushroom at the end of our lab. Below is a photo of what we created in class.