I am in the process of submitting a course proposal for an adult evening education program that would introduce people to robotics. One of the entries that I must fill in deals with expected material costs. I would appreciate feedback on what would be appropiate expenses and whether the school should include the costs as part of the registration or if the student should buy the components as needed. I am in favor of having an option not to build.
On a similar note, would it be better to first offer a course in "C" programming geared to a possible robotics controller board?
These courses are for "FUN". No experience necessary and would meet once per week for 8 weeks.
I am in a rural area with not much high tech industry and have no idea of the possible interest level but would like to contribute to the community.
I have attached a pdf with my current thoughts. Feedback is welcome!!!
Replaced pdf with actual submitted to school admin. Decided to go with the Educational Tadpole from Chris. Went to his shop and did some dickering so I am know in posession of one of the critters.
I am leaning towards the Education Tadpole. Sent Chris an email asking about wheel encoders. I recall getting started and thinking feedback was a waste because “I” could control the motors precisely!!!
Any thoughts about excursions into the sensor arena. Possible topics include batteries, power converters, A/D, I2C, SPI, UART, IR distance, Sonar, radio. I am sorting the add-on devices from Sparkfun, Digilent, Adafruit, SeeedStudeo, EBAY, and easly have 100 little boards in my basement.
Also need to come up with a C programming agenda. I am pretty much sold on Arduino but to what degree of detail. In a former life I taught CS at the college level so I may have an unreasonable expecations. As an old fart, I tend to use linux, make, gcc, and debug with scopes and logic analyizers.
Lastly, I need to define a course duration and a plan for future study. I think 8 weeks is too long to just assemble and demo but not long enough if there is going to be some individual effort. Perhaps some sort of contest.
I plan on purchasing the supplies and selling at cost. Students who would prefer to use the cardboad and popsicle sticks would be encouged to do so but how maintain the schedule? Another option is to try and convince the school to purchase the kits and retain ownership for those who do not want to bring them home.
Thanks for the many suggestions. I appreciate the feedback. Please post any concerns or recomendations.
I too am planning on trying to get people interested in
hobby robotics/microcontroller programming. I am going to have help from the vocational school instructor for robotics. Currently, we both agree that programming is what we need to start with.
I am planning to start with the basics; LEDs, switches, pots. I will probably show off the pencil/graphite based variable resistor. As it is hobby robotics, I don’t want to get too hung up on expensive parts to start with; Pro Mini, usb-ttl adapter, tcrt5000 (to add line following behavior or maybe for sumo bot), pots, switches, LEDs, caps, resistors, breadboards, servos.
I currently only have 5 Pro Minis and associated parts. I plan on attempting to make foam board robot bases along with hot glue and maybe hobby shop airplane tires. I hear drawer pulls make for good inexpensive casters. That or a portion of a ping pong ball.
I noticed you suggested talking about pros/cons of ultrasonic sensors, but, the same wasn’t mentioned with respect to infrared sensors. You might consider line following sensors. Between line following and/or ir/us sensors you could get in to maze solving. patrickmccabe has a good writeup around here that gets in to maze solving. There may be another post by someone else that also covers maze solving in a different way. Talking to servos may be another thing you could cover. If you use the micro magician, be aware that the mega8 on board can’t easily drive the motors with PWM and servos too. It is possible, but, it requires software PWM for the servos.
and seeing a commercial about Exxon Mobil with respect to engineering. It might be worth a bit of time to see if they would be willing to offer some funding for the electronics. I’m thinking about contacting them for the same thing. One would think a profitable company could spare $500 to $1000 to assist in people learning something new.
