Tuesday, March 15, 2016

A Musical Instrument with a Photoresistor - Scratch for Arduino (S4A) project

A project to make a musical instrument using the Arduino and Scratch for Arduino (S4A). The inspiration came from the theremin-like musical instrument project on s4a.cat

The version below uses a photoresistor. It is much simpler than the s4a.cat one and I have not used any LEDs either. I might add them in, as part 2 of the project.

A photoresistor (or light-dependent resistor, LDR, or photocell) is a light-controlled variable resistor. The resistance of a photoresistor decreases with increasing incident light intensity; in other words, it exhibits photoconductivity. A photoresistor can be applied in light-sensitive detector circuits, and light- and dark-activated switching circuits. (Wikipedia)

Monday, March 7, 2016

Scratch for Arduino (S4A) Project - A Food Detector

Here is a project to design a Food Detector - an interactive game that tries to identify the type of food among a few given food items.  It uses the Arduino's analog inputs to measure the resistance offered by different food items. I designed this lesson for our Grade 5 students, and taught it last week at school. The inspiration for this lesson came from the Pixelate game, that I found on the Arduino site. The class went really well, and the kids had fun playing detective with different fruits & vegetables.

Below is the formal lesson plan:

Aim

Different food items have different resistance/ conductance to electricity. Learn to use the analog sensors in the Arduino to identify different food items, with S4A (Scratch for Arduino) as the software development environment.