electronics for a beginner

aidanki

hi all,

I want to teach myself something about electronics so I think the best way to learn is by doing stuff.

Im an engineer by profession with a masters degress so they are not entirely new to me, but I work in the biomed field as a manufacturing engineer one of the most untechnical roles on the planet

Im going to start with an arduino kit of some description I think

Im wondering what project to undertake with it anyone got any ideas or have experience of building some form of robot using an arduino?

If I could even teach myself something about electronics based on arduino experience could I put it on my CV or would people just laugh?

what would I like to learn-something about servo motors and drives and I suppose everything else that goes with it

Spacedog

aidanki wrote: »

Im going to start with an arduino kit of some description I think

good call, perfect platform for learning electronics, good support with hardware and easy to use software[/QUOTE]

Im wondering what project to undertake with it anyone got any ideas or have experience of building some form of robot using an arduino?

select your goal and work towards it. for a robot, look at servos, motors and stepper motors. can alos look at kits for CNC machines or 3D printer if you are looking for something you will get some use from in the future.

If I could even teach myself something about electronics based on arduino experience could I put it on my CV or would people just laugh?

if you imagine a project, research and build it in your spare time, learning along the way, and have some to show at the end. You may not be able to call your self a qualified engineer, but no ones gonna laugh at you for saying you design and build electronics as a hobby. can only be good to have on the CV for engineering jobs.

what would I like to learn-something about servo motors and drives and I suppose everything else that goes with it

I'd recommend an arduino, motor shields and a variety of servos/ stepper motors. perhaps a kit for a remote car, bot or CNC.

look on adafruit/sparkfun for kits and tutorials, see what components are available before you settle on a project.

Knifey Spoony

Arduinos are the perfect way of getting into electronics and programming as well. They are so simple to use and there is a huge online community there, so plenty of help available to you if you ever get stuck on something.

Me and another guy actually built a maze solving robot using a master and slave Arduino setup for our final year project. All the sensors, DC motors, battery charging circuitry and bluetooth communications are all controlled by the Arduinos and in the end it was not that difficult to program all the functions to control these elements. It was just trying to get them to work altogether that almost drove us insane. Anyway, here a video of it in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpcKbDBvmMA

aidanki

Knifey Spoony wrote: »

Arduinos are the perfect way of getting into electronics and programming as well. They are so simple to use and there is a huge online community there, so plenty of help available to you if you ever get stuck on something.

Me and another guy actually built a maze solving robot using a master and slave Arduino setup for our final year project. All the sensors, DC motors, battery charging circuitry and bluetooth communications are all controlled by the Arduinos and in the end it was not that difficult to program all the functions to control these elements. It was just trying to get them to work altogether that almost drove us insane. Anyway, here a video of it in action:

any chance of a few more details on this be interesting and might be a help to get me started

Knifey Spoony

aidanki wrote: »

any chance of a few more details on this be interesting and might be a help to get me started

What parts do you want to know more about? There was quite a bit to it and I could probably talk all night about it if left unchecked!

aidanki

Knifey Spoony wrote: »

What parts do you want to know more about? There was quite a bit to it and I could probably talk all night about it if left unchecked!

start at the beginning ill interrupt you with questions

the components did they all come from one kit?

the programming where did you start

one last thing did it help you wiht getting a job

Knifey Spoony

aidanki wrote: »

start at the beginning ill interrupt you with questions

the components did they all come from one kit?

Nope, we got all the components form a website called robotshop and we salvaged a small few parts from old project lying around the department. But we just kinda picked and matched components. The body of the robot was made in the department as there is a group there setup just for helping with bits and pieces of final year projects.

aidanki wrote: »

the programming where did you start

Arduino code is largely based on C and I had had a bit of experince in that before starting with the Arduino, which I had never touched before this project. But I found it very easy to pick up by just following some of the basic tutorials that comes with the software, such as the "Blink" or "Fade" tutorials. Then I just took it from there, just slowly building on the robot code from one function to the next. It really wasn't that difficult to buid up individual functions to control the motors or the encoders, it was more the Bluetooth communication and master/slave interface that was a bit of a nightmare.

aidanki wrote: »

one last thing did it help you wiht getting a job

The project was definitely one of the big talking points in the any of the interviews that I sat. They wanted to know what types of skills were involved, the types of circuits used and generally how it all works. Saying that, it's in the RF industry that I got a job, so the robot was really not applicable to the industry, but they were still very impressed by it.

But, I think what really impressed people was some of the work I did outside of the course in my own time. I had done some work messing around with guitar pedals and I was told many times how impressed interviewers were that I had applied what I learned in the course to something that I am also passionate about.

So, messing about with electronics in your spare time really shows interviewers how interested you are in this area and that it's not just something you had to learn in a course and that's it.

carbon nanotube

i used an Arduino to control a LP3907 buck converter for my masters. The arduino is good and many variants to select from.

aidanki

carbon nanotube wrote: »

i used an Arduino to control a LP3907 buck converter for my masters. The arduino is good and many variants to select from.

what were you using your controller for if you don't mind me asking