Collaborative Learning

Transducers change other types of energy into electrical energy and vice versa.

Sensors

Actuators

circuits

is the difference in eletrical charge between two points VOLT

is the rate at which electrical charge s flowing. AMPERES

is a material's tendency to resist the flow of current OHM

today we had an introduction to electronics in class. Kaj told us about the big fundamentals of electronics.

to learn more about how electric circuits work we got 4 little hands-off exercises. Together with Kat i worked on the little assignments. it was really fun because it was so easy to assemble but seems a bit complicated.

we used copper tape to "draw" a little electric circuit and connected a resistor with 100 ohm, a 3V battery and a LED to the circuits to power the LED.

What surprised me the most was the little circuit with a the dimmer. it was so simple but still amazing.
we just used a little piece of non conductive isolating tape to reduce the current.

the harder we pushed on that tape
the brighter the LED got. and vise
versa - pushing just a little resulted
in a really dark LED.

BASICS OF ELECTRONICS

11.03.2019

Transducer

Conductors

materials that are able to let electric current flow

things that could convert forms of energy (e.g. light or movement)

closed loops of a conductive material and a power source

things that could convert electrical energy

ASSIGNMENT

Micro OLED Breakout

for my assignment i took the Micro OLED panel. in order to get things started i had to solder 8 connector pins to the little chip.

DAY 1

DAY 2

today we got an introduction to the arduino plattform and some really basic programming.

But the day started with a little soldering workshop by kaj. i was really excited about this workshop because i've never done any soldering before - and never thought, that i could solder my own electronics!!! that was so fun. i really enjoyed it.

this code is used to get an INPUT from a digital signal. In our case we used a Button. The button get deliver 2 different types of INPUT --> 1 or 0.

This state is saved in the INT buttonState.

to spice things up i wanted to created i little function, that turns off the little blue LED on the Node MCU.

i created a if-statement that checks if the buttonState is true or false, if it is false the LED should be turned off.

i tried a lot of different aproaches, discussed it with Kaj and Shirley shortly in class, but it was not working.

even though the code was right. the blue LED on the MCU did not turned off.

this code is used to get an INPUT from a analog signal.
we used a ligh tsensor for that input.

we printed the code to the serial monitor window to see which values where produces.

After the wirkshop Shirley took over and we started to install all necessary drivers for our little micro controller - the Node MCU.

I tinkered around together with Asle today. It was really nice - because he is open-minded when it comes to new things he doesn't know already. And he is very eager to learn this stuff. So we got a really nice drive in our session even though it was a bit compolcated, if you're not experienced in programming.
Actually we made a really good fit. Because Asle was very good with the electronics. He knew where every cable belongs - and i was able to help with the coding.

use cases

creating your own digital watch

showing instantly collected data, e.g. moisture, C02, O2, light etc.

this lines define which library we are using and how to communicate with the breakout chip

a real clock working on the display

OUTPUTS OF THE OLED BREAKOUT

i tried to get the display working on tuesday evening at my place. i started searching the web for tutorials that could help me to understand how the display works.

I found the original manufacturer of the OLED Breakout - it is called SparkFun. On their webpage they got this little product video that shows the possibilites of this device

Additionally they had a really nice tutorial that shows step by step how you could connect the breakout to your arduino device. But yeah it just shows ho to connect it to your "real" arduino board. so i had to search more on the web.
In the evening i wanted to put everything together but i found out, that i have to use 8 cables to connect the display properly.
i just took 5 cables with me from uni. so i couldn't handle the hookup at home.

new day new opportunity.
first thing of the day was to set everything up and get additional cables in order to see if everything is going to work.

HOW TO USE THE OLED DISPLAY

1. download the following libraray and copy it to your
library folder inside the arduino installation

2. connect your display with the node mcu like it is shown in the picture on the right.

3. Open your arduino IDE and start with your first lines of code.

4. First step: write the following lines
in the //comments on the script you will find additional information on what every line does.

reminder on how to connect each cable

DAY 3

5. If you want to check out other examples - just have a look at the examples code that comes with the library

SCROLL ALL TO THE RIGHT FOR THE 
DOCUMENTATION OF THE OLED DISPLAY

FEEDBACK FOR ANNA'S 



DOCUMENTATION

- i allways struggle with the breadboard to make electric circuits, but anna documented everything very clearly and easy to get
- but still i connected the VN pin of the Laser Transmitter Module to the wrong pin (not the 5V pin) in the first place, so it did not worked
- after checking everything again i figuered it out

- the code that was provided by anna in order to get the laser to work was super simple --> i had no struggle to get it working
- the laser started blinking after the first try

- the links anna provided like the user manual were super helpful to get an understanding of the device

SUGGEESTIONS: 

- make overpaintings on the image of the electric circuit to make clear which cable does what (e.g. GND, 5V etc)