Part 1 - Robot Art Show
Introduction: For the robot art show, we had to program an arduino to do something interesting. To program the arduino, we had to learn how to program(because very few of us knew how to). Once we learned how to code, we made our own code and put it into the arduino to have it do something cool. My group consisted of me and my partner, Jake. We decided from the beginning that we wanted to code something related to karaoke because we thought that it was going to be a challenge.
Evidence of Work:
My group programmed our arduino board to be a mini-piano-karaoke-machine. There are four LED's that correspond to four buttons(of the same colors), when these buttons are pressed down on, they play a note. Since there were only four buttons we had to find a song that only had four notes in it, we ended up choosing the opening to XXXTentacion's smash hit "Look at Me!". When a sequence of LED's lit up on the second breadboard, you would mimic them and it would sound just like the song I mentioned earlier.
-Content-
R(resistance) |
The resistance of a circuit component is defined as the ratio of the voltage applied to the electric current which flows through it. In our project, if we did not use enough resistance on our circuit then our circuit could catch on fire due to a voltage overload. R=V/I can be used to find the total resistance of a circuit. The unit used for resistance are ohm's. |
I(current) |
An electric current is the flow of electric charge that goes around the circuit. To find the total current, you can use the equation I=V/R. The unit for current is amps. |
V(voltage) |
Voltage is the pressure from a circuit’s power source that pushes the current through an electrical loop. In my group's project, the batteries that we used to power our circuits contained a certain amount of volts. To find the total voltage you can use Ohm's law which is V=IR. The unit used for voltage is volts. |
Reflection:
This project exceeded my expectations of what I thought it was going to be. In the beginning of this project, most of the people in my class had no idea on how to code or make circuits(including me) and as a result of not knowing what to do, I became extremely dumbfounded during the first week of work. But surprisingly, at the end of the first week while working on the code for the mini-piano-karaoke-machine I had gained a newfound knowledge of coding and felt more comfortable throughout the rest of the project. One of the pro's of this project for me was that we were in groups of two which allowed for much easier communication of ideas between partners. Another pro was not having to make a google slides presentation for when my group presented(this gave us more time to focus and work on the mini-piano-karaoke-machine). One con of this project was how hard it initially was, for example me and my group did practically nothing except for bug fixing for 2 days straight. Another con was when the computers wouldn't do what they were supposed to do. All in all, this project was really fun and taught me a lot about circuits and coding.
Part 2 - Power Novato(and wind turbine design)
Introduction: For this project, we were put into our groups from before the Robot Art Show and were tasked with creating a detailed plan on how to power Novato or San Marin High School by making a microgrid and by using renewable energy. My group consisted of me, Evan, Andersen, and Kian. Our group chose to create a presentation on powering San Marin by mainly using a hydro-solar power combo. Before this project began, we went on a field trip to a real life microgrid and it was interesting to see how things actually worked rather than just thinking about it.
Evidence of Work:
-Below are the questions we had to answer within our slides presentation-
-Wind Turbine Design-
The group of four that I was in was tasked with making a mini-wind turbine that would spin fast in order to gain a large amount of watts. We experimented with many designs to see which would work best. In the end, our half-oval shaped wing tilted at 30 degrees inwards worked the best for getting large amounts of watts. My group overall did pretty good when working together and I thought that this mini project was an enjoyable learning experience.