We at Harvestworks got our hands on a pre-release of the new Arduino education starter kit through RS components. We were excited to open it and found that the kit was very well thought out and includes lots of great stuff to get you started with physical computing and advance your skill set.
Here are some of the principal components we found in the kit:
- Uno board
- USB cable
- breadboard
- Project book
- transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, potentiomenters
- temperature sensor
- photoresistor
- tilt sensor
- LEDs
- optocouplers
- 16×2 LCD screen
- DC and servo motors
- piezo elements
- buttons
- jumper wires
- H-bridge motor driver
The project book is great and is full of fun projects. It starts at a beginner level and gradually introduces new concepts as the projects become more advanced. We made the zoetrope project (pictured), which was somewhere roughly in the middle of the book. A zoetrope is a device that brings the illusion of motion to a series of still images. It is a rotating cylinder with slits cut and an animation sequence on the inside (you’ve probably seen one). We modified the circuit and code a little to use a wind sensor instead of the provided potentiometer to control the rate of rotation. It’s scaled such that it seems to move by blowing on it. This project was a lot of fun, took roughly half an hour, and it seems like the other projects should be a good time as well. In addition to the project book, Massimo Banzi (cofounder of Arduino), will be hosting a series of tutorials online through RS components. The kits will be available to the public in the near future at http://www.rs-components.com/arduino. We recommend you get one.
Jake Wilkinson