Makerspace Day
February 25, 2014
At first I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve been a part of hackathons and I’ve attended Bent Fest so my expectations where somewhat in line with those events. However there was a different element. This class is a collection of Zicklin Honors business students. For them, this was the first time being exposed to a collaborative hands-on event like this. What was interesting was that even in the limited time given, everyone was able to put something together and exercise their creativity.
Initially, I gravitated toward the Arduino electronics kit. Unfortunately, the kit required an IDE and a power supply. I asked the professor if I could just spend the class time studying the manual but unfortunately that would defeat the purpose of the exercise. So, after moving around the room looking for another kit to work with, I ended up working with Viktoria on a modular electronics kit. I chose this over the other items because I wanted to do something with electronics and/or software. The other projects were a bit more on the artsy side, so this was a good second choice to the Arduino kit. This was not my first time working with electronics. In the past I’ve played with electronics kits and have done modifications to the circuits on musical instruments. What I haven’t done yet, is combine my interest in computer programming with “hardware” programming. Perhaps that might be my next step!
Viktoria and I ended up connecting a few of the modular electronic components to come up with a “walking propeller”. We connected a power module, a sliding potentiometer, a small propeller, and an LED light. When the slider is between 0-50%, the propeller spins in one direction. When the slider is above 50%, it spins in the opposite direction. When laid down flat, and when you oscillate the voltage with the potentiometer, the propeller alternates direction and creates the illusion of walking. The LED light pulsated along which helped us determine how much voltage was going through the circuit. Here is a video of our project in action. Given more time, I would want to learn to use the Arduino kit to build a remote sensing device that is aware of elements in its surrounding.