ARDUINO WORKSHOP

Creation of a practice workshop
for the University of Coburg

During my aprenticeship and my occupation as trainer i had much contact with the programming of industrial controllers. The bad thing: those controllers are very expensive and too overpacked for private projects. At technician school, i learned a little bit about Arduino and i gained deeper knowledge with the help of tutorials.

Later, after my "outing" as a electrician during the first semester of my studies, a professor asked me, if i could make something with Arduino for my fellow design students.

The result was a two day workshop with a self written script and a small programming project.

During the workshop, a "Thermo-Chromo-Meter" was assembled and programmed. A measured temperature was visualized with the color of a RGB-LED.

My fellow students got a small insight into the world of microcontrollers and the required electronics.

THE SCRIPT

The script for the workshop is open-source and can be downloaded here (German only).

ARDUINO WORKSHOP VOL.2

With the second workshop for the next second semester, i wanted to go a step further:

The components should not be slot into a breadboard any more, but mounted inside a 3D-printed housing.

It should be possible to control the gadget with a smartphone.

More applications of Arduino in the product design should be shown this way. Even electric features can be shown in a model and a smartphone can be used as a interface, maybe for the development of apps.

I got supported by Daniel Franz, a fellow student of the second semestester, during preparing and execution of the workshop.

THE GADGET

This time the participants should assemble and program a real product: It's a air quality meter, measuring humidity and temperature and remember to ventilate the room.

I'ts recommend for human wellness and the prevention of mildew to keep a optimal humidity inside a closed room. The air gets enriched from every person by breathing and over the skin. Measuring humidity therefore is a simple way to find out air quality in this case.

If humidity reaches a minimum or maximum, the gadget lighten up it's transparent front. In addition, a speaker can play a melody to remember the user venting the room.

The gadget can be controlled by an app. Also additional information can be given over a smartphone.

IMPRESSIONS