Arduino Boards

What is an Ardunio Board?
"Arduino is an open-source prototyping platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. Arduino boards are able to read inputs. You can tell your board what to do by sending a set of instructions to the microcontroller on the board."(Arduino.cc, 2016)
Activity:
The activity that was given was to make a circuit using an Ardunio Board, wires, resistors, breadboard, LED lights and wires. The circuit was meant to make the LED light to light up. This was done using the Arduino Programming application. However, the code was not written by me but rather Spark fun.(https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/sik-experiment-guide-for-arduino---v32/experiment-1-blinking-an-led)

(Fig 1) Program of  lighting one LED light using the Arduino Programming application. 

(Fig 2) A fritzing Diagram of how the wires, LED light and resistor were put in.

(Fig 3)
A photo of the circuit and the LED light working 




















Extend activity:
The next activity was to figure out how to light up multiple lights using an Arduino board. The coding was once again done by spark fun.
(https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/sik-experiment-guide-for-arduino---v32/experiment-4-driving-multiple-leds)

(Fig 4) A photo of both the circuit
and the LED lights working.





















What was the purpose of the activity:  
The purpose of the activity was to grasp an understanding of how the Arduino Board works, how circuits are made and also how programming the Arduino works.

Self-evaluation:
when working with the Arduino Boards for the second time. (first time was in year 10. However, I wasn't able to figure it out for the first time) This time, I was able to correctly make a circuit and I was able to grasp it quite quickly. however, I did tend to put the wires in the wrong inputs and require help from Mrs Major quite often. However, it was really rewarding seeing that I able to make a circuit that blinked 2 LED lights.

How is the Arduino Board implemented in real life?
With the use of Arduino boards, you could make pretty much anything you wanted to. The design I'll be looking at will the use of Arduino boards to make a wireless home security system. The system can be programmed to just sound an alarm or can be fitted with a PIR motion sensor which will allow it to be able to detect any human motion this information is then sent to an RF transmitter-receiver model to then sound an alarm which is better than a simple one because it will more accurate than a simple security system.

Critical Analysis:
The Arduino Boards are classified as a robotic system, as do not classify as artificial intelligence as it does not learn by itself. The Arduino uses the programming language of both C and C++ which goes through minor changes and is passes through a C/C++ compiler to become (avr-g++). The system is a great learning tool as it gives students an understanding of how circuits function and also using a different type of programming language. Its purpose is to be able to adapt to different projects and ideas such as being used to make robots, gadgets, sensing and controlling lights and even making interactive games.
"Segmenting code into functions allows a programmer to create modular pieces of code that perform a defined task and then return to the area of code from which the function was "called". The typical case for creating a function is when one needs to perform the same action multiple times in a program." (Arduino.cc, 2016)

The cost for one Arduino Uno costs $31.10 in Australian dollars. After working with an Arduino I believe even through the price is a tad bit expenisve that it is worth it as you use the system almost anything as long you have an idea.