Arduino Initiations

We're not sure how we're going to wire this thing up, especially since Art is the only one of us who has real experience with wiring or electronics.  Today we unpacked the Arduino kit and started working through the Arduino book. I started going through the Processing book a few weeks ago and am really enjoying that. I'm not sure how we're going to use them together, if we are, but working on the Processing makes the Arduino code pretty easy to understand.

Chelsea wants the disco ball to light up and spin, which we should probably be able to do. Not sure if we're going to put it in the speaker or aim the light at it. Also, I'm worrying about how we'll wire the iMac although there are plenty of openings in it. That's for Art to mentor us on.

The Arduino kit is fun to play with but I'm pretty ham-handed when it comes to getting the wires and resistors into the breadboard. Chelsea is much better at it than I am.  Even after reading most of the book, the Arduino board is still pretty mysterious to me. It'll probably just take a lot more practicing with it.

Also, we burned out a couple of LEDs because we didn't take the resistor requirements seriously enough. Doh. Art made us a Scratch program to help us figure out the resistors. 

 I need to wear these magnifying glasses to even see the holes in the breadboard!

The holes in that breadboard are really small!

So yeah, the electronics part is going to take a bunch of work and more Art helping out.