Arduino Uno – A learning journey (or I have created a monster)

I first came across the micro processor Arduino Uno around 3 years ago now when our school was gifted a set of Arduino processors and the hardware to go with them by the CSIRO Scientists in Schools Program.

I took one home over the holidays and proceeded to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get a single LED light to flash on demand. My partner listened to a lot of swearing and cursing and finally after 3 days of Googling, Youtubing and trial and error I got this tiny light the size of a pen nib to flash! It flashed and I “whooped”. I quickly filmed my result and texted it to my work colleague at a ridiculous hour of the evening.

He, who had not yet begun his Arduino journey was perplexed at my joy and the fact that I thought I should tell him that I had made a light flash at 10.00 pm on a school night. After all, hadn’t Thomas Edison already discovered the lightbulb?

Anyway, his time was to come and I congratulated him heartily when his time came as I knew what he went through to get the same result. From that point on we immersed ourselves in “open source” software and learnt how to code using both drag and drop via “Scratch” and “C++ ” Programming. Open source software is software that is available for anyone to download free of cost and obligation. A life saver for anyone just starting out.

Arduino became my obsession and my torture for a number of months. There was more late night texts and congratulations when I got a servo motor to move an arm 180 degrees. Our Scientist partner from CSIRO Scientists in Schools program was also an expert in all things Arduino and he obtained the open source plans for a “Me Arm” which he cut out of plywood on his laser cutter.

“Lets make this with our Primary School STEM Club” we decided! A huge undertaking and not one that ever reached completion. We optimistically had Dave cut out 10 sets of these “Me Arms” and set the kids up in groups to construct the arms before coding. I tell you what, this soon sorts out the problem-solvers from the “it’s too hard, I can’t do this”.

We ended up finishing two of these dastardly arms and then spent masses of time both in STEM Club and at home coding the multiple servo motors. I have posted a short video of our results at the bottom of the Home page. At the end of that particular year the Arduino and Me Arms were put in a plastic crate and have only just emerged two years later to be exclaimed over by our new set of proteges. “Lets get these working!”

They say that you forget pain, that it’s like childbirth, so here we go again!