Richard
Hi, my name is Richard. I’m going to the seventh grade. In class, we’re working with Arduino, learning to program it.
BASICS
The easiest way to imagine a circuit is, as we learned, comparing to a water pump. The pressure in the pump represents the voltage in an electrical circuit. A large pipe, which doesn’t affect the flow of the water, is the same as a wire in an electrical circuit. However, a small pipe, which restricts the flow of the water, represents a resistor. A water system can also represent parallel and series circuits. For example, if a large pump branched off into multiple pumps into other peoples homes, it would be the same as a wire branching off to multiple different LEDs. A pump with 2 or more restricted pipes in a row after each other, represents a series circuit. This is the same as a wire have to resistors right after each other for a combined resistance.
ULTRASONIC RANGE FINDER
http://tny.cz/1acaa83b
An ultrasonic range finder is a device that uses ultra sonic sound to measure the distance between it and the object in question. It measures the time in which the sound takes to move to the object and bounce back into the sensor of the range finder. Then, it divides the measurement by 29, for 29 microseconds, the sound travels one centimeter. After that, it divides the new number by 2, leaving the distance to the object. It then uses and Arduino program to send the information to the display, which uses the information it receives and displays it. I like it because it can use a simple sound wave to measure far distances within a second. And it is also pretty accurate that it refreshes its display quickly, displaying the new, more accurate distance to the object. Also, it can also measure the speed of a moving object, which is another useful feature. For example, if the device was on a plane, and the plane was moving at a specific speed, the ultrasonic speed finder could immediately find the speed the plane is moving at with the correct program.
SOUND REACTING LIGHTS
http://tny.cz/59a7a168
Sound reacting lights are LEDs that flash in response to sound. The speaker plays the sound from the computer and the Arduino determines the volume of the sound wave and then sends a signal to the LEDs to flash at the right time and flash at the right brightness. In order to have the LEDs turn on and off at the right times, the code would be 20-30 lines of digitalwrite and delay commands. However, there is a command to shorten that to just eight lines of code. Using a ‘for loop’, it can tell the LEDs to turn on and flash at the correct times.
We made the the LEDs react to the sound volume. We made it so that is the sound volume is 3x the set average of the music, all the LEDs would turn on. However if the volume is less than 3x the average of the music, only half of the LEDS would turn on. Then, if the volume wasn’t high enough, all the lights would turn off.
SCRATCH AND PROCESSING
Scratch is a website that is used for programming. Users make games and projects that they can chose to share or not to share. They use commands like ‘forever’, ‘if-else’ commands and others. Scratch can even do math commands like ‘=’ ‘<’ ‘>’ to calculate the character or variable with numbers.
When a scratch account is just created, the use is not quite a scratcher. But wen the user comments and shares projects, they are promoted to an official scratcher. When promoted, the user can then use cloud data and play multiplayer games. For example, a game called 3D laser tag is a multiplayer game. In order to play with other players, you needed to be able to use cloud data. And since you needed to be an official scratcher, many of us weren’t able to play the game with each other.
Processing is a program that allows the user to make shapes and add commands, like an advanced version of scratch.
FINAL SCRATCH PROJECT
Making a scratch project is just like putting multiple puzzles together to form a final project. Each puzzle is made of multiple blocks which each performs a specific action. I got my idea to make this final project when I was exploring scratch. I noticed there were barely any multiplayer games. So I decided to make a multiplayer game myself. I planned to make a race game, but it turned out as three player fighting game. There were features such as the game kept track of each player’s kills and health. The game even rooted for the player who had the most kills.