What courses have you taken at the UW? (Ex: CS 302: Introduction to CS, CS 367: Intro to Data Structures, etc)
CS 302, CS 367, ECE 252, ECE 210, Physics and Chemistry, third semester Calculus
What did you know about Arduinos, sensors, SparkCores, IoT, etc before you began the Workshop Series?
No knowledge of Arduino, SparkCore, or IoT. Moderate knowledge of electrical circuits and sensors as well as C-style programming.
Describe your project in 1-2 sentences - or, more simply, what does it do?
My Spark Core is able to receive Strings sent from webforms from my server site (running on localhost for the time being). It takes the String it receives and writes it directly to the Arduino (rev 3) over Serial (TX -> RX, UART).
The larger Arduino has enough memory and storage for my main Sketch, which is a music playing machine.
The user is able to choose a loop size, and then individually store notes (and durations) until the loop size is reached, once this stage occurs the loop will play until the stop loop button is clicked. Notes can also be previewed and are played every time a different note is selected, but a press of “Choose” confirms that the note will get stored.
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.
Interestingly, the example of “researched circuits in a speaker and did soldering” was something I had to do. I went through many iterations with my basic idea of having a speaker and wanting to control sounds being played. I went through countless circuit designs and learned about how the Arduino works internally (pull-up resistors, etc).
The music maker started off fully functional with physical I/O: potentiometers, buttons, and a touch sensor.
It wasn’t fun to play with, it is much easier to use a mouse and keyboard and be able to look at a screen. Luckily, I have experience with web development in php, but some learning in Javascript allowed me to unlock the potential of dynamic content, and the final result turned out nice and clean.
Describe, list, OR provide reference material/links on things you learned. Ex: Web hooks, Azure, Circuits, Serial Communication, completing full circuits, REST applications, etc.
For Serial between two Arduinos to work, their grounds need to be connected. I learned that when documentation is poor on these devices, troubleshooting can be a long and, at times, hopeless process, but the longer you stick with it the more you will have learned when it is over. I am not much more familiar with the Arduino language and all of the built-in features it has.
What was the hardest thing you learned, and why?
Javascript was daunting at first. I had never used it but now I am extremely comfortable with it.
What did you learn from working with a partner (if applicable) in 1-3 sentences:
Worked alone.
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 like to make either some sort of interactive or multiplayer game using either Spark Cores and wifi or XBee communication; or a device with texting or calling capabilities—I know it is something Arduino can do (with an expensive shield) but I can imagine that in the process of completing such a device I would learn a lot more about the world around me.
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