Next date: Saturday, 19 April 2025

Hardware Freedom Day celebrates the benefits of Open Hardware and Open Hardware design initiatives. Imagine what we could do if medical and technical hardware was inexpensive and accessible to manufacture for everyone needing these tools.

• Hardware Freedom Day
• Digital Freedom Foundation – Matrix
• Open Hardware – Matrix
  • Open Risc – Matrix
  • Tinkerboard
  • Arduino
  • Pine64 – Matrix
• ARM Programming – Matrix
• Matrix

Stickers

There are a few stickers in the Discovery Centre, which is at the back of the STEAM Café, 13 Torbay Road, Paignton.

Tags

#OpenHardware,#HardwareFreedomDay,#HFD,#DFF,#Risc,#RiscV,#Tinker,#Arduino,#Pine64

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The next meeting of the Tor bay Tinkerers group will be on Saturday 26th April 2025 at 9:30

We meet at:-

STEAM Cafe & Discovery Centre 13 Torbay Road, Paignton.

Possible topics

TBC

• Dragster Race Car update
• Snap Electronics
• Controlling Cnc Machines with Arduino (TBC)
• Other projects

To give you an idea of what we have been up to, please see the write-up from March

If you would like to ask any questions, please see our Facebook page

Links

• Arduino
• Raspberry Pi
  • Raspberry Pi 5
    
  • Raspberry Pi 4
  • Raspberry Pi 3
• Humble Bundle – Embedded Intelligence

Tags

#Torbay,#Tinkerers,#Electronics,#Hacking,#Arduino, #RaspberryPi,#Making

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Another post with the videos from the meeting.

• Video 1 – Drag car
• Video 2 OA Robot
• Video 3 – Trains
• Video 4 Micro:bit car

Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Tor bay Tinkerers group will be on Saturday 26th April 2025 at 9:30

Tags

#Torbay,#Tinkerers,#Electronics,#Hacking,#Arduino, #RaspberryPi,#Making

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Meeting held at STEAM Cafe & Discovery Centre 13 Torbay Road, Paignton.

It was just myself and Helen again this month, but we were busy testing Helen's Robot Drag car, this can now go the distance in <2 seconds, which is the target time. It does seem to spin after slowing down.

The Obstacle avoiding (OA) robot now works, and now has two programs attached to it, one is the OA mode, and the other it is programmed to moved around as if dancing.

The code is now on my laptop, so can be uploaded as needed, depending on what is required.

We also had a look at the Micro:bit car that belongs to Lucy M, this again works, beeps, the LEDs are a little bright, which is great in the dark.

I also had a look at the Snap Electronics kit and built up a few basic circuits including a transistor Amp.

A basic LED with switch

Transistor (NPN) amplifier with LED off

Transistor (NPN) amplifier with LED On

Transistor (NPN) amplifier with instructions.

The STEAM discovery centre also has a nice train set. This is Thomas the tank engine themed, but has track, points to change tracks and carriages for the trains.

If you would like to ask any questions, please see our Facebook page

Links

• Arduino
• Raspberry Pi

Tags

#Torbay,#Tinkerers,#Electronics,#Hacking,#Arduino, #RaspberryPi,#Making)

Links

• Arduino
• Raspberry Pi

If you would like to ask any questions, please message Helen via our Facebook page

Tags

#Torbay,#Tinkerers,#Electronics,#Hacking,#Arduino, #RaspberryPi,#Making

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The next meeting of the Tor bay Tinkerers group will be on Saturday 29th March 2025 at 9:30. Just reposting this as a reminder.

We meet at:-

STEAM Cafe & Discovery Centre 13 Torbay Road, Paignton.

Possible topics

• Dragster Race Car update
• Testing IR robot car – This should now be fixed
• Micro:bit projects

To give you an idea of what we have been up to, please see the write-up from Feb 2025

If you would like to ask any questions, please see our Facebook page

Links

• Arduino
• Raspberry Pi

Tags

#Torbay,#Tinkerers,#Electronics,#Hacking,#Arduino, #RaspberryPi,#Making

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I was intending to use a potentiometer to control the motor speed, however using an arduino seems rather overkill for this. So I will just do that directly.

I decided to build a car instead, so far this has 2 wheels and just goes forward.

#include <AFMotor.h>

AF_DCMotor motorA(3);
AF_DCMotor motorB(4);
/*
 * Created by ArduinoGetStarted.com
 *
 * This example code is in the public domain
 *
 * Tutorial page: https://arduinogetstarted.com/tutorials/arduino-potentiometer
 */



// the setup routine runs once when you press reset:
void setup() {
  // initialize serial communication at 9600 bits per second:
  //Serial.begin(9600);
  motorA.setSpeed(100);
  motorA.run(RELEASE);
  motorB.setSpeed(100);
  motorB.run(RELEASE);
}

// the loop routine runs over and over again forever:
void loop() {

  
  
//Motor spinning clockwise
  motorA.run(FORWARD);
  //Speed up
  motorA.setSpeed(100);  
  motorB.run(FORWARD);
  //Speed up
  motorB.setSpeed(100); 
    


  }
  

#Arduino,#Robot,#Car,#InitialCode

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So, further to the previous post earlier. I made a quick video showing the motor and code in action. Paper is on just to make it easier to see the motor moving.

Video

Tags

#DCMotor,#Arduino,#Demonstration

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Just been looking at the Arduino Motor shield. First off I found some example code along with the all important motor shield library which can be found here

The library is compressed, so once downloaded, I used the Arduino IDE tool to prepare the library software so it can be used.

The video below just shows how to do this. You still need to include the library in your sketch code with:-

#include <AFMotor.h>

Video

Tags

#DCMotor,#Arduino

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I want to build something for the science kit to make it easier to stir liquids. I have found a project for a DC motor controlled by a potentiometer. that also uses an Arduino microcontroller. This should be easy enough to build and attach a stirrer to. This can be soldered up, battery attached, power switch may also be needed.

Should then be easier to stir liquids for science experiments.

Tags

#Arduino,#Electronics,#Science,#Chemical,#Stirrer,#DC,#Motor, #Control

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So further to my previous attempt, I have now made some progress with this. New code is as follows

// the setup function runs once when you press reset or power the board

float floatMap(float x, float in_min, float in_max, float out_min, float out_max) {
  return (x - in_min) * (out_max - out_min) / (in_max - in_min) + out_min;
}
const int buzzer = 5;


void setup() {
  // initialize digital pin LED_BUILTIN as an output.
  pinMode(buzzer, OUTPUT);
}


  

// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
  // read the input on analog pin A0:
  int analogValue = analogRead(A0);
  // Rescale to potentiometer's voltage (from 0V to 5V):
  float voltage = floatMap(analogValue, 0, 1023, 0, 5);
  tone(buzzer, (voltage));   // 1khz tone to buzzer
  delay(analogValue);                       // wait for time period linked to pot input value
  tone(buzzer, (voltage));    // 1khz tone to buzzer

  //https://www.instructables.com/How-to-use-a-Buzzer-Arduino-Tutorial/
}

The main difference here is that I am binding the buzzer tone to the voltage

  float voltage = floatMap(analogValue, 0, 1023, 0, 5);
  tone(buzzer, (voltage));   // 1khz tone to buzzer
  delay(analogValue);                       // wait for time period linked to pot input value
  tone(buzzer, (voltage));    // 1khz tone to buzzer

This sort of works, but the frequency isn't very high.

Tags

#Arduino,#Electronics

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