BEETs@WSU August 2014

Overview

Day 1

Introductions

• Dom, Tom, and John
• Mentors

The Plan

• One humongoloid Rube Goldberg machine
• Each group of 3-4 makes a part of the machine
• All the machines will connect

Intention for the week

• This better be fun!
• There's a presentation at the end: everybody should see our "liquid awesome."
• Practice hands-on engineering and problem solving

Schedule for the Week

• Today: Get cozy and snuggle up with the materials at hand
• Tomorrow, start digging in!

Rules of the Game

• Keep it fun!
• Love everything: the materials, the tools, your team, and us :-)
• If discouraged, it’s OK. Confusion is part of the process. Hang ten, dude.
• Collaborate

Intro to the Materials: Overview

New Improved: now with iteration!

The Iterative Process (repeat 4 times)

• We demo
• What You Need To Know
• Some challenges
• You demo

Materials at hand

• Mechanical
• Electrical I
• Electrical II
• Arduino

=

Mechanical Stuff

• Demo
• Challenges: Each group does one of these or something else
  • make something move using the wheels
  • use a rubber band to controllably power something (nothing moving freely in the air)
  • use the gears to make something move faster or slower.
  • balance something using a dowel
  • make a channel for a ball using the foam
  •  ???
• Form in teams
• Get materials (only related to mechanics. No electrical)
• Challenge Session
• Demos

Electrical stuff

• Demo
• Overview of electricity
  • resistors
  • LED
  • motor
  • switch
• Challenges
  • light an LED (but...Don’t blow it!)
  • control the motor with a switch
  • make the motor lift something heavy
  • make the motor spin a shaft
  • spin a CD with the motor
  •  ???
• Get materials (only related to mechanics and electrical. No electronics)
• Challenge Session
• Demos

More complicated electrics: The Breadboard

• Demo
• Overview of the breadboard
  • Solderless Breadboard Pic
  • Breadboard Simulator
• Challenges:
  • light LED 3 different ways using the Breadboard
  • using a magnet, magnet sensor switch and breadboard, make something that turns on both the motor and an LED when you move the magnet to a switch.
  •  ???

Microcontrollers (and the Arduino)

• Demo
• 50 Billion Mile High Overview of Arduino
  • Challenges:
  • get LED to blink.
  • Change the speed of the blink
  • get LED to fade
  • control fade with potentiometer
  • control blink speed with variable resistor (potentiometer)
  •  ???