Etec 597: Makerspaces

Here's to the start of Etec 597: Makerspaces through Texas A&M-Commerce.

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Project 2: Copcar Lights

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During this week's lessons we experimented with the potentiometer. I started with the example code provided and then I rewrote the entire code with different names for the variables, just to check if I could follow what information was being used and where it was needed in the code. Reflection: One of the more humbling points was after I successfully rewrote the code I showed my wife. She thought it was pretty cool as she is always very supportive. I then attempted to complete one of the circuit play activities to get both devices to run through the digital ports. During this portion I wanted to dive in a little deeper and I discovered the print.read command, I documented this process in my previous post. It took me about two hours to fix and debug this activity, after which point I showed my wife again. It then dawned on me that from her perspective I had done pretty much nothing, the LED still flashed the same as before, but I knew that I had made great strides in my personal u...
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Personal Retrospective

Personal Retrospective at the end of Makerspace What was the build that you are most proud of and why? I am really proud of both the digital dice and my final build. Both of these projects pushed my programming and coding limits beyond what I have used for a number of years. I have enjoyed programming, but since I took my current teaching job I teach pretty much the same coding lessons every year and they don't go very deep. These activities let me try out some coding skills beyond what I teach to my students on an annual basis.  Go back to your first week and read each week’s submission with an eye for personal growth. Where were you when you started and where did you end up? To be honest the first couple of weeks were pretty boring for me, which is why I tried to spice it up by adding in the RGB or the other extension projects. The initial LED projects are almost identical to what I teach my students so I already know most of the ins-and-outs around those projects. T...
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Week 3: Times Square and Multiple Inputs

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This week pushed me to complete multiple tutorial portions. Specifically, the first new piece of equipment was the RGB led. I have used this device for previous projects, but my use was limited to a single color. At first I copied the example code for sweeping through various colors and then I tried to recreate this code from scratch to test my understanding of each part of the code. The code can be downloaded here . To be honest this was the first time that I really felt challenged by the coding portion of the arduino. The past two weeks I was able to breeze through the code as it was very similar to the robotics coding that I teach. This week took a couple of steps up, introducing for loops, void functions, and arrays all at once. I anxiously await to read how my colleagues approached this week. The first major challenge was to combine the various circuits together. The multiple leds activity reminded me of watching the New Years ball drop at Times Square. I combined the ...
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