arduino

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.
Arduino can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors, and other actuators. The microcontroller on the board is programmed using the Arduino programming language (based on Wiring) and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing). Arduino projects can be stand-alone or they can communicate with software running on a computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP).

In our Arduino workshop with Jason our group was divided in two groups. Each groub assebled one Adruino board each group. One of the groups assembled Adruino board wich is sensitive to light and could sens the differences in light conditions. Other group made board wich would be able to recieve information from computer and turrn little motor on and off according to incoming data.

These are some photographs of my group building Adruino board:

To build the board we used the instructions that can be downloaded from the Andruino web site.

After completing boards, next step was to connect two boards. To make two separate boards to communicate with each other we used Processing (to import and export the information) and Pachube to transmit the information from one computer to another. In order to enable the Processing read the data from the board Arduino library need to be imported.

Final outcome: Light sensitive board from group one computer was transmitting information to the Pachube. Data would change according to amounts of light were board recieving (someone covering the light sensor- smaller readings, uncovering- bigger readings). Second computer wich had connected to the Pachube feed from the first group by entering its key, was recieving this data through the processing on to the board. Motor was spinning on and off, with 15sec delay, reacting to the information coming from first board.