This is so awesome - an arduino controlled fan cart.
If you are not familiar with the arduino, basically it is just a very simple and cheap programmable chip. I have been meaning to play around with one of these, but really I am afraid. Afraid I will like it just a little too much.
In this fan cart (made by Eric Ayars - who was at NC State when I was there), the arduino tells the fan when to turn on and off by sensing magnets on the track. Who cares? I care. This allows you to do some cool demos and activities with non-constant forces.
Some other things I can think of:
- You could make two and use it for two fans on one cart. I have always had problem putting equal strength fans on the same cart. It would be cool if you could rapidly turn one on and off to adjust the strength.
- Or, you could have two fans that turn on at different ends of the track. This way you could make the fan 'oscillate' from one end to the other.
- I wonder if you could time it so that it simulates an increasing (non-constant force). Students tend to think you need an increasing force would be needed for constant acceleration.
I, for one, welcome our arduino-powered overlords.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
Technorati Tags: ddftw, bozos,
markcc-screwups
So, as I said in the edit to my previous post about the wind-driven cart, I
seriously blew it. The folks who pointed out the similarity of the cart to a tacking
sailboat were absolutely correct. The guys who built this cart, and recorded the demo…
Tuesday was the last day of the fifth week of classes (out of ten; for reasons that passeth all understanding, we started on Wednesday, so all the week-based deadlines fall on Tuesday). Accordingly, it seems like a decent time for an update on the active learning stuff I've been doing in my classes…
This is the first post I'm doing for the "Basic Concepts" series. When I asked for suggestions, I got a good long list of stuff, and it's hard to know quite where to start. I'm going to start with "Force," because physics as we know it more or less started with Isaac Newton, and Newton is best…
The Makeblock mBot Add-on Pack-Six-legged Robot V1.1 is an add on for the Makeblock DIY mBot 1.1 Kit (Bluetooth Version) - STEM Education - Arduino - Scratch 2.0 - Programmable Robot Kit for Kids to Learn Coding & Robotics - Pink or any of its variants.
The makeblock robot is an arduino…
Use the Arduino as a general-purpose measurement and control unit via linux. Install SimpleMessageSystem from arduino.cc/playground/Interfacing/Linuxtty or my website, then use my shellscript package. AD is scaled to mV and formatted for import to spreadsheets. 100 AD readings x6chans in <40secs. Fully scriptable, see included examples. Use as proof-of-concept for your project.
This blog truncated my post at less-than. Should say "100 AD readings x6chans in less than 40secs." Fully scriptable, with examples. See http://user.cavenet.com/rolandl for the code packages.