Class #2

Hello again!

         Here we are again after class #2. Today's class began in more of a lecture style scenario, discussing the process of coding and how it worked on the binary language system of 1's and 0's. The concept of binary is something that the group as a class had already been pretty comfortable with however it is always nice to have a good refresher since the concepts were going to be on our first quiz which is coming up in our next class on Tuesday. Next we moved on to some activities which used visual basic and our phigets. The first activities dealt with computer sensing, we started off with contact sensors in the form of momentary, micro and toggle switches. Pictured here are the wired circuit of the three tested switches as well as the interface used. in the picture on the right we see the interface in which the switch diagrams closed upon activating the switch.

For part two of the contact sensing activity we incorporated a single poll double throw switch which functions much the same as a toggle switch however has a neutral "off" position in the middle.

For the last activity of the day we moved into non-contact sensing devices, the first of which was a light sensing photo-cell, which was connected to the system in the same manner as the other switched however was activated by using a flash light app on my cell phone.
This brings us to the end of our second class, the activities are offering a good introduction into using the phidget controller systems, although in essence it is much the same principle as the gadget master which we used during our courses last summer. Looking forward to the activities to come. Bye for now!