Excerpts from Lion Kimbro's message of Tue Sep 09 17:31:36 -0700 2008: > > Great! > > I just called Jon Dugan; > > He said he'll post something by Thursday about dates & ordering; > I've penciled in the 20th, 27th, and 4th (following 3 Saturday Houses.)
I have been kicking around doing something like this at Saturday House for the last six months or so, but I've been too busy to actually get off my arse and suggest it. Thanks everyone for bring it up! With an eye towards doing in addition to discussing here is my suggested plan of attack: The Arduino platform provides an excellent, inexpensive starting point for exploring electronics and microcontrollers. You can find an introduction to the Arduino platform at: http://www.arduino.cc/ In particular Arduino is a nice abstraction layer which hides a lot of low level details so you can get your feet wet in a hurry. But when you're ready to do more low level stuff you can easily jump in at a deeper level. The Arduino uses an Atmel AVR microcontroller as it's hardware base and GCC with a very nice library as it's software base. There are several options for nice Arduino kits. For our purposes I think the iduino ( http://spiffie.org/kits/iduino/ ) is the best bet, for the following reasons: * You can program it from any computer with USB and one of Mac OS X, Linux or Windows * It's pretty cheap (about $18) * It has good instructions online * It's pretty easy to assemble Lady Ada has a similar board Boarduino: http://www.adafruit.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=19&products_id=91 But it's a bit more expensive for no real gain. There are several other similar boards but most of them require a USB to serial adapter cable which adds cost. Tentative outline: September 20th: Introduction microcontrollers and soldering * Suggestions for good materials for learning basic electronics * Introduction to microcontrollers using the Arduino platform * Tutorial on soldering and basic electronic assembly * Hands on: Assemble your own Arduino kit September 27th: Programming microcontrollers * Introduction to the Arduino environment * Hands on: program your own cylon raider/knight rider LED blinker * Hands on: make noise with your Arduino * Hands on: color mixing with an RGB LED * Alternative development tools October 4th: Arduino workshop * Free form brainstorming * Bring current projects to share * Bring things you're stuck on * Bring ideas * Bring questions My hope is to make this a fun, discussion, hands on, exploration and discovery type thing. I think we'd probably need 2-3 hours for each session. I will commit to putting a few hours of work into each session to create a reasonable "curriculum" but I welcome input and suggestions from everyone else. Parts list: $17.82 iduino http://spiffie.org/kits/iduino/ $ 4.50 breadboard http://www.elexp.com/bb_101.htm $ 5.00 LEDs, resistors, button, speaker (approx cost) I am willing to coordinate a group buy to get a bunch of these and save on shipping. I think we can put together these little kits for about $30. In order to get everything here by the 20th I'd like to place the order Monday morning if not sooner. If I get enough response quickly enough I may go ahead and place an order Friday morning. == ACTION REQUIRED == If you are interested in this kit and are willing to spend about $30 and want in on the group buy do the following: Send an email to me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with an interesting variation on the following text: Yes, JON!, I'd like to take part in the GREAT ARDUINO Saturday House Extravaganza! Please count me in for ____ lovely Arduino kits. I'm already a bit of a elecronics fiend and have access to ___ soldering irons and ___ wire cutters I can bring on the 20th. With my kindest regards and greatest hopes of inventing the next viral widget, Guiglielmo Tesla XXXVII (Or if you're not feeling up to that a simple, to the point email will do.) Please include "Saturday House" and "Arduino" in the subject. Please don't send all of these to the list -- I will summarize them and send out an update to the list. If you do send it to the list I might add $1 to the cost of your kit... ;) Jon PS: This is _not_ intended to usurp the discussion on Saturday but rather an attempt to get us all hands on a week from Saturday. -- Jon Dugan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Website: http://saturdayhouse.org/ Post: [email protected] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
