Tinkerers Meeting – April 2025

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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Tinkerers Meeting – March 2025 – Write Up pt 2

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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Tinkerers Meeting – March 2025 – Write Up

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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Tinkerers Meeting – March 2025

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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Audio amp

A few months ago, I found a circuit diagram to build a simple audio amplifier circuit with the LM386 chip.

The circuit and further details can be found here, while my completed project is below.

The project works, but seems a little crackly in places, So I need to investigate further.

Tags

#Electronics,#Project,#Audio,#Amplifier,#AudioAmplifier

**A

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Code Club 20/1/2024 Write up

We seem to be heading off at a tangent with code club, however today we carried on with building a robot car, and another group were starting work on a 12 in 1 robot kit.

Elsewhere, we installed Ubuntu on a netbook and had a look at the Sony Laptop, which now dual boots with Ubuntu and has all the various hardware drivers working.

We do however want to get back to coding at Code Club and ensure STEM group is reserved for some of the project work.

Next code club is on 3rd Feb 2024

Tags

#Code,#Coding,#CodeClub,#STEM,#Electronics

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Code Club 20/1/2024

Usual code club on Saturday 10 – 12 at Paignton Library, we will be in the learning centre for the usual coding activities and in room 10 to carry on with the projects we are doing at the STEM group (see previous post).

Tags

#Code,#Coding,#CodeClub,#STEM,#Electronics

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Code Club Electronics 19

I have built a basic potentiometer controlled motor, this works quite well, just a little sensitve. But should be fine for what I need this for.

Video

Tags

#Electronics,#Motor,#Speed,#Controller,#Potentiometer

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Code Club Electronics 14

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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Code Club Electronics 13

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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