Exercises

The practical lab exercises for this course are drawn from the technical exercises for the Fall Introduction to Physical Computing course. We will also refer to the topic area guides as a reference for basic theory.

Arduino IDE and Programming

• Arduino Introduction. Basic description, finding Arduino software.
• Coding, Compiling, Deploying. Running several sample programs, modifying code.
• Soft Blink. Introduce several programming fundamentals by fading the onboard LED.

Elementary Electronics

• Bench, Battery, Grid. Electrical safety, voltage measurement.
• Continuity Tests. Resistance measurement.
• Power Switch and LED. Voltage and current measurement, controlling current with a switch.
• Voltage Divider Basics. Introducing Ohm's Law via our essential analog circuit: the voltage divider.
• Smoke a Resistor. Testing Ohm's Law empirically by destroying a resistor.
• Sensor Switch Basics. Applying the voltage divider to the simplest sensor: the switch.
• Photocell Sensor. Applying the voltage divider to a light sensor.
• LED Current Limiting. Applying the voltage divider to regulating LED current.
• Voltage Divider Roundup. Reviewing the general form of the divider circuit.

Arduino with Electronics

• Read Switch Input. Read a switch input as a binary digital value.
• Sensor-Driven LEDs. Control LED brightness using sensor data.
• Servo Sweep. Drive a servo motor along simple trajectories.
• Unipolar Drivers. Driving solenoids, relays, large lamps, and unidirectional DC motors.
• Multi-channel Driver. Generate sound and vibration using a power driver.
• Bipolar H-Bridge Drivers. Driving DC motors in both directions.

Signals and Time

• Event Loop Programming. Structuring software as event-loop time-slicing for executing multiple simultaneous tasks.
• Music Sequencer. Demonstration of a state-machine interpretation of performance data with musical audio output.