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arduino is for idiots

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LAN_403

...

Mon Nov 05 2012, 01:08AM

Registered Member #56 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445

rgb laser projector -

giant countdown clock -

other projects I was involved in:

64x64 led display, we programmed it for snake and the matrix visualization with 3 bit intensity
levatator - we replaced the old analog controller (filled an entire breadboard) with an arduino and were able to add in some simple autotuning routines
hard drive clock rev1 - used a 3.5" hard drive as a clock face with RGB leds for hours/seconds/minutes
hard drive clock rev2 - used a 5.25" hard drive as a clock face, similar control scheme
hard drive clock rev3 - used a massive 8" harddrive with 7 segments milled into the display to make the display, it also had a spectrum analyzer which ran in the free processor time
barbot - (also had a web app which runs on a netbook)
autonomous line following robot
several LED cubes, a 4x4x4 single color one which had a rain visualization, a 3x3x3 RGB one which had a spectrum analyzer, a 3x3x3 which had a rubiks cube type game
laser diode parameter analyzer - measures power vs time and input current, while controlling the temperature, etc
self playing xylophone which played the UCSB fight song

Pinky's Brain

Mon Nov 05 2012, 01:29AM

Registered Member #2901 Joined: Thu Jun 03 2010, 01:25PM
Location:
Posts: 837

No experience with arduinos ... but I have seen enough kids start on visual basic and become great coders in the end to think there is value in low barrier to entry tools.

Tetris

Mon Nov 05 2012, 03:23AM

Registered Member #4016 Joined: Thu Jul 21 2011, 01:52AM
Location: Gainesville, FL
Posts: 660

Well I can't even seem to use my Arduino right...

Carbon_Rod

Mon Nov 05 2012, 05:14AM

Registered Member #65 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:43AM
Location:
Posts: 1155

The best tool is one that works... AVRs are great little chips, and Arduino lowered the technical barriers to using them.

The PIC people used to drive the 8051 crowd crazy with a billion posts about blinking an LED...

I guess people must now endure the AVR + Arduino loader crowd until their skills mature.
@HVC:
Typically I recommend this book for beginners:

Hey...
Someone should post a cool LED blinker for Raspberry Pi...
LOL...

Microwatt

Mon Nov 05 2012, 07:22AM

Registered Member #3282 Joined: Wed Oct 06 2010, 05:01PM
Location:
Posts: 224

IamSmooth wrote ...

Microwatt wrote ...

what sort of complex projects have you seen done with a shitino? I went to my local hackers space and everybody was doing an arduino project. I think it makes electronics too user friendly.

12kw induction heater, self-locking resonance
Capable of levitating aluminum, steel and copper. Capable of serving as a furnace for a blacksmith who needs to uniformly heat pieces of steel as small as a knife to as large as a full-sized sword. This project required a microprocessor. If you look at the schematics at the end of the tutorial you can see how it was worked into the project. There are YouTube links so you can see it in action.

12kw??
you brits have it easy.

radiotech

Mon Nov 05 2012, 07:54AM

Registered Member #2463 Joined: Wed Nov 11 2009, 03:49AM
Location:
Posts: 1546

Never a comparator that could print Hello World on a screen. Also with $40. worth of parts
a lesson can be taught without thousands of dollars of lab gear, and a full time lab assistant
to manage it. The Basic Stamp Board of Education kits opened up that possibility too.

Steve Conner

Mon Nov 05 2012, 07:56AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

I just borrowed an Arduino for a project that I need to lash together in a hurry.

Patrick

Mon Nov 05 2012, 08:06AM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

well ill just say this---

First, there are a lot of people who should be using 555's, 2n2222's and 741's, but dont.
Second, BASIC stamps and micros are important and have a place.
Third, the Arduino and Sketch are meant to lower the burden to entry, but dumming down real programming can teach kids bad practices, which i see alot...

Ive taken 3 semesters of C++, 2 semesters of Assembly, and 1 of C with embedded systems. And im constantly learning from my mistakes. Currently using MultiWii which is an arduino based system, and not happy about it. I love the STM32, still learning though.

Steve Conner

Mon Nov 05 2012, 12:14PM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

What sorts of bad practices might those be? Everyone has to start somewhere, in my case it was typing programs from a computer magazine into an Amiga by hand.

I have a STM32 Discovery too, but I never got beyond the LED blinking program. I wanted to use the timers to output interrupter pulses for a Tesla coil, but I never figured out the timer API. Got any tips?

Mattski

Mon Nov 05 2012, 04:11PM

Registered Member #1792 Joined: Fri Oct 31 2008, 08:12PM
Location: University of California
Posts: 527

Personally I've seen very few Arduino projects. One was a audio modulated flyback which I think could have been much better implemented with analog circuits or a different microcontroller which hid a faster PWM module. Another was a charger controller and data logger with SD card for a solar power project, a perfect project for the Arduino since there was relatively simple program logic that needed implementing and the students were more interested in the system aspect than in messing around with the microcontrollers.

If people are interested in more performance or flexibility they may graduate to other microcontrollers, or maybe it doesn't matter and they'll keep using Arduinos. Don't blame the tool if people do silly things with it, that doesn't make it a bad tool.

Attacking the tool because it makes things easy that used to be hard does stray a bit into electronic hipster territory: "I was into microcontrollers before they were cool and easy to use!"

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