View source for Family makers electronics sessions

*Introductory circuits - Create basic circuits using breadboards and/or conductive paints/pens and simple components such as LEDs, resistors, capacitors and teach concepts such as an RC circuit through the construction of an astable/monostable circuit etc..


*Edgebot - Create a robot which backs up and turns when a switch is triggered, used as a explanatory tool to show CNC PCB production and teach basic through hole soldering. The following changes could be made to the circuit;
 - RC circuit capacitor could be changed to adjust turn time period
 - Switch position differentiated to create different behaviours (Resting on the table so that it detects the edge of a table and backs up, on the front so that it backs up when it hits an objects.)
 - A choice between either 1 or 2 switch edgebot circuits (A single switch circuit would be easier to build and would be less time consuming.)


*BEAM photovore - Create a type of BEAM robot which constantly seeks the brightest light source [http://encyclobeamia.solarbotics.net/articles/beam.html Explanation of BEAM robots]
 - Resistor value can be changed to motor trim
 - Capacitor value changed to alter charge time/run time (Lower capacity = shorter charge time + shorter motor run time, Higher capacity = longer charge time + longer motor run time)


*IR RC robot - Create a a robot which moves in accordance to the instructions of a remote user using a 9-bit encoder/decoder chip (5 bit address allowing for 32 separate channels and 4 bits of information)
 - As the robot would only require 3 channels for basic control, leaving 1 channel open for expansion, e.g. LEDs, noises, another motor etc.
 - Build their own remote control transmitter and car


*Collaborative robots - Using prior projects to work together to achieve simplistic tasks


*Basic programming of Arduino - Using a scratch-cat like Arduino programming environment to program an Arduino
 - Replicate previous projects and show that it can be easier, but not best suited to every task (Relatively straight-forward to do the edgebot and photovore, yet more difficult to do signal encoding/decoding)
 - Use the environment to start to understand the programming of Arduino and microcontrollers
 - Have a look at the code generated from Modkit and attempt to use the full Arduino IDE