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http://bit.ly/PER_Sparkfun14
Open-source Hardware, Tinkering, and
Physics Education:
Integrating DIY Sensors and Data Acquisition with
Arduino
Physics Education Research (PER) Group Meeting
October 9, 2014

Background / Introduction
● Spent 8 yrs working in industry
○ ADC Telecommunications
○ Ball Aerospace
○ ...
● Attended CU-Boulder - MA+ program
● Taught HS Physics / Engineering / Robotics
○ Centaurus HS (Lafayette)
○ Overland HS (Aurora)
● Now?
○ Work at Sparkfun Electronics as an Education
Engineer.

What I do now?
Education Engineer at Sparkfun Electronics.
- Design and lead professional development workshops
for teachers / educators.
- Develop curriculum, activities, projects for classroom
use.

Sparkfun Electronics
Started in 2003 by Nathan Seidle (CU Alum) as
a Junior in EE.
- Burned out a programming board
- Found a supplier (Olimex) in Bulgaria
- good prices, bad website, poor payment options
- Made a website
- Sparkfun was born...

What the EDU team does here...
Promote “tinkering” and messing around with
hardware, microcontrollers, and circuits to
empower people to build and make new things!
Support formal & informal education built around
making things -- whether with code, electronics,
or physical fabrication.

What is Physics?
“...physics is about asking fundamental questions and
trying to answer them by observing and experimenting.”

Craft Tech Inspired
Copper Tape & Basic Circuits
Using Copper Tape,
resistive ink (Bare
Conductive) to build
paper circuits provides a
1:1 analogue between
the circuit diagram and
the actual circuit.

With which you can now make...
https://learn.sparkfun.com/resources/68

Ohms Law & Conductivity?

Copper Tape Investigations
Parallel vs. Series Circuits
Ohm’s Law →
Is the adhesive conductive?
- Design and implement an experiment w/
data to support your conclusion.
Paper PCB?

Copper Tape + ATtiny85 (Arduino-
compatible 8-pin DIP)

For comparison:
- Apple II : 1 MHz clock, 4K
RAM
- IBM XT (8088) : 4.77 MHz,
128K RAM
In 2005 -- Enters Arduino →
8-bit, 16 MHz Microcontroller, 32K flash, 2K EEPROM
Arduino is a low-cost, open
source, easily programmable
device → operates on as low as
3V -- 2 AA batteries

Arduino Board
“Strong Friend” Created in Ivrea, Italy
in 2005 by Massimo Banzi & David Cuartielles
Open Source Hardware
Processor
Coding is accessible & transferrable → (C++, Processing, java)

Programming environment
(C / C++)

Let’s try something new…
http://codebender.cc

Protosnap Pro Mini

Hello World!
Blinking an LED → 3 instructions (functions) to
know:
pinMode([pinNum], [INPUTOUTPUT]);
digitalWrite([pinNum], [HIGHLOW]);
delay([time_ms])
https://codebender.cc/sketch:52993

Let’s see what this all looks like?

Open Challenges
● How fast can you blink an LED?
How fast can you see it blink?
● Morse Code Challenge -- … --- …
● Heartbeat → Halloween is right
around the corner!
● Make a light sculpture?

Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy
Light Sculpture project

We’re physicists, right? Let’s talk
data...
8-bit Microcontroller → handles 8-bit, 16-bit,
and 32-bit data types:
byte / char: 0 to 255 / -128 to 127
int / unsigned int: -32,768 to 32,767
long / unsigned long: +/- 2^31
float: decimal values

My first project → ReactionTimer

Why I like the Reaction Timer
- Data is personally meaningful.
- Emphasizes accuracy / error /
uncertainty in measurement.
- As a tool -- it gives students to
ask more questions…
- Physics is about measurement,
observations, and patterns.

What all can we do with this?
● Nature of Science: Real data is messy!
● Nature of Science: Variance / Error Analysis /
Statistics?
● Kinematics: Reaction Time vs. stopping distance
● Kinematics: Reaction Time vs. falling distance
● Add Sound -- Using tone() command and a buzzer --
does it sound make a difference?
● Other ideas? How about experimental design?

“New” vocabulary / concepts for
physics teachers
- Microcontrollers
- void setup() / void loop() ???
- Vcc and GND
- Clock speeds
- Analog vs. Digital
- A/D Converter & Sampling
- Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)

Other fun demos / activities:
Simiple Fading →
Button Fading →
Button Tones →
Color Mixing →

A different way of drawing
circuits?
Vcc
ANALOG INPUT (A0)
GND
6 Analog Input “channels”
10-bit A/D -> resolution of
~48.9 mV
Empirical testing:
~115 uS per measure
~7.3 kHz max sampling rate

RC Time Constant Meas.
Vmax = 5V

All of the other stuff I didn’t talk
about...
- Integration with Arduino & Vernier.
- Robotics (mechatronics) → what better way
to teach kinematics, forces, rotational
motion?
- ATtiny85 -- the “tiny” Arduino
- Voltage vs. Current vs. Power vs. Energy
- RF Wireless transmission RSSI & inverse
square losses.

Physics Education & Reform
Interested in piloting / researching new
methods in lab & physics education reform
- Develop new ideas and identify where these fit in
“traditional” physics (& engineering) education.
- Increase engagement & participation for ALL
students.
- Encourage, Inspire, and Motivate “tinkering,” play,
and creativity!

Questions?

Thank you!!!
brian.huang@sparkfun.com
@bri_huang

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Open-Source Hardware, Tinkering, and Physics Education

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