This course was massively popular in 2016,17 and 18. For the first time, by popular demand we will be hosting our second Arduino and Python courses of the year!
This is a course run by our Vice President, and our Electronics Officer, in 5 evening sessions. This course will introduce you to the basics of the Arduino platform and microcontroller programming with a bit of general electronics thrown in. No previous experience is needed - just bring your laptop!
We'll be using the Arduino IDE for this course - this is available here. You'll need to install this, but don't worry if you have issues - we can help you at the first session!
All equipment used for this course will of course be accessible in the Makerspace to use on further projects and learning if you wish to.
Room TBC - 1800-2000
The sessions will follow the following structure:
- What is an Arduino and what can it do.
- IDE feature guide
- Explanation of Arduino sketch structure
- Basic programming constructs (e.g If statements, For loops etc.)
- Blink on board LED
- Blink an external LED
- Get button input to toggle a LED
- Analogue read using a potentiometer
- Analogue Write to dim a LED
- Tone to make sounds with a buzzer
- UART to PC
- SPI (using SPI temp sensor)
- I2C (using I2C temp sensor)
- Shift register for more IO
- Interrupts to speed up code
- Timer interrupts
- EEPROM
- Put your newfound Arduino skills to use in the final project.
This course will be lead our Sysadmin in 5 evening sessions in Semester One.
This course will start by introducing you to Python syntax, programming fundamentals, and basic object-oriented programming. The course will be formed of several teaching sessions with exercises during sessions and a final project in the last sessions.
No previous programming experience is needed - just bring your laptop! We'll be using the online environment REPL.it so there's no need to install anything either!
Room TBC - 1800-2000
The sessions will follow the following structure:
S1 - An Introduction to Python - Date TBC
- What is Python?
- What makes up a program
- What is a variable
- Data types
- Types and casting
- What is a conditional statement?
- Loops
- Functions and variables
- What is a list?
- Creating, using lists
- range() function
- Using dictionaries
- What is a module?
- Installing, importing, and using modules
- What is an object?
- Interacting with objects
- Creating and using objects
- Formatted Output
- File Management
- Regular Expressions
- Lambda, filter, reduce, map
- Unit Testing
- Object-Oriented Programming
- Hackathon like competition
- Based on previous sessions, there will be challenges with small projects
- Completing a project will earn you points based on the difficulty of the task
- The student with the most points will win the challenge
