LED Strip

1. What courses have you taken at the UW? (Ex: CS 302: Introduction to CS, CS 367: Intro to Data Structures, etc) CS302 Way back first semester of freshman year, CS240 Discreet Math this semester.

2. What did you know about Arduinos, sensors, SparkCores, IoT, etc before you began the Workshop Series? I knew what Arduinos were, but I didn't really understand what people did with them. I had heard the term IoT before but again, only the term tossed around here and there. I never really thought much of it. SparkCore I had never heard of before. Also, I knew of the website Instructables, which seems to have a good amount of Arduino stuff on it but didn't really make the connection until now.

3. Describe your project in 1-2 sentences - or, more simply, what does it do? My project--hopefully--turns an LED strip on and off, and/or cycles through different modes. It's still a work in progress.

4. Describe the learning process you took to create your project in 1-5 sentences. Ex: I went above and beyond the provided information and researched circuits in a speaker and soldering in order to create the physical part of my project, and learned the C language in order to complete the code. Creating my project, I had to learn how to import libraries into the Arduino IDE, and how to change different things within those libraries to get the strip to do what I wanted it to do. This seems like a pretty trivial task, but coming from essentially no background proved somewhat tricky for me.

5. Describe, list, OR provide reference material/links on things you learned. Ex: Web hooks, Azure, Circuits, Serial Communication, completing full circuits, REST applications, etc. I learned about Arduino, the IDE, setting up a SparkCore and the SparkCore CLI; I learned basic things about circuitry, and I learned the frustrations and satisfactions that come with hacking on things. I learned how difficult it is to do something as simple as turn on an LED strip over the internet, and I have a greater degree of respect for people who can do this sort of thing like it's nothing.

6. What was the hardest thing you learned, and why? The hardest thing I learned was that you have to work through the frustration. I was ready to give up at 1 AM last night, but Katie and Mitch kept me going and I'm glad I persevered.

7. What did you learn from working with a partner (if applicable) in 1-3 sentences: Communication barriers can be huge and sometimes your partner will up and move out of the state.

8. What would you like to do, hack, create, make, etc if you were provided a full set of kits to use - no more than 10 sentences. I would love to learn this stuff from the ground up, on my own time. Doing this workshop during the last weeks of class and leading into Finals Week was biting off a bit too much to chew for me. I would like time to put into hacking, which I just couldn't spare during the course of the workshop, which is unfortunate. It seems like the limits are endless when it comes to Arduino, and I'd like to explore the creativity of what all they can do. At the beginning of the course my partner and I fantasized about making an infinity mirror clock with the LED strip; making that come to life would be my first long-term goal with an Arduino kit.

Built With

• arduino
• particle