First Meeting of Humboldt Microcontrollers Group

So I figured the first meeting of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group (which was tonight, May 15, 2014) would be a pretty quiet one, likely just Nick and me, maybe one or two others.

It turned out that instead of two or three people, we ended up with nine people participating in the kick-off meeting for the group! If we have nine people, or more, show up at the biweekly meetings (next one is May 29, put it on your calendar), well have to figure out a bigger meeting area. But having lots of people show up is a good problem...

Tonights meeting was mostly a meet-and-greet, finding out what each persons experience with electronics was (if any) and what will make it worthwhile for them to participate in some, most or all of the groups future meetings. The interests ranged from just learning about microcontrollers and how to make one do simple things, all the way up to making a tracking mechanism for a radio telescope.

For the May 29 meeting, the current plan is to start out with a short discussion and demo on one of the topics covered in the 4th Jeremy Blum Arduino video tutorial. We wont repeat what is done in the video, but Nick will pick one topic from the video, and hell go a little more in-depth about that, or show and explain some aspect of the topic that Jeremy didnt include in the video.

After Nick does a short show and tell, well split up into a learner group and an advanced group. The learner group will discuss the topics and exercises in the 4th video, and make sure all the learners are up to speed on that, then go back over anything in the first three videos that people might not have had a chance to ask questions about tonight. Nick will facilitate the advanced group in working on a project or designing a future project, or hell come up with some other way to get the advanced microcontroller people learning, teaching or just having fun making something with microcontrollers.

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Blum 6 Arduino Video Tutorial Humboldt Microcontrollers Group Meeting

Tonights post is a quick look at the #6 Arduino video tutorial from Jeremy Blum, which is the main topic for the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting this Thursday, June 26.

The #6 video tutorial, Serial and Processing takes a look at how to use an Arduino for communicating with the computer via a serial connection and using a programming language called Processing to visualize information from an Arduino on your computer screen.

For the serial communication between the Arduino Uno and the computer, the 0 RX (receive) pin and the 1 TX (transmit) pin on the Arduino are used. You connect the Arduino to your computer via a USB cable, which has 4 pins in it. One is power and one is ground. The other two are the serial transmit and receive pins. The USB transmit pin from the computer connects with the receive (RX) pin on the Arduino, and the computers USB receive pin connects to the Arduino transmit (TX) pin.

Jeremy runs through a number of Arduino programming examples for learning how to use the serial communication features. If you go through the #6 Blum video and feel you still want a little more background on serial communication with Arduinos, here are three other resources to look at:

1. The Arduino.cc reference page for serial communications
2. An Arduino tutorial from Ladyada about serial communications
3. A guide from Instructables on Serial Communications with Arduino

After he does the serial communications exercises, Jeremy covers a little bit about the programming language Processing. You start out by going to the website for Processing. The home webpage for Processing says its an open source language that:

"has promoted software literacy within the visual arts and visual literacy within technology. Initially created to serve as a software sketchbook and to teach computer programming fundamentals within a visual context, Processing evolved into a development tool for professionals...there are tens of thousands of students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists who use Processing for learning, prototyping, and production."

In addition to the presentation and exercises with Processing that Jeremy Blum has for you in the video, if you want a better understanding of the language, you can spend some time going through some of the tutorials on the Processing website. If those tutorials arent your cup of tea, take a look at these resources for learning the basics of Processing:

1. The intro page from Arduino.cc for the Processing language
2. A SparkFun intro called "Connecting Arduino to Processing"
3. An Instructables session on "How to control LEDs with Processing and Arduino"

Mark your calendar for this Thursday, and plan to be at 1385 8th Street, Arcata, California, from 6 to 8 PM for the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting!

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A Good Humboldt Use For Arduino Gardening

So yesterday I said Id write a bit about Arduino, a currently popular type of microcontroller, or single board microcontroller.

Arduino is an open source hardware project that was started in Italy and has spread around the world in the past several years.

If you search on Google for Arduino projects, youll get more than ten million hits. Arduino microcontroller boards are being used for just about anything and everything that people can think of. And one of those things is gardening.

There are projects like Growduino, Garduino (which has been superseded by growerbot), and the Horto Domi Kickstarter project.

In the Humboldt Microcontrollers community activities, one of the projects I plan to work on is some type of application for Arduino in the garden. A recent post at Cooking Hacks was about the launch of their Open Garden Project. The post says:

"...there is a lot of interest in urban or terraces vertical gardens that allow grow vegetables in the city centers controlling firsthand the level of fertilizer used. This week, we are happy to announce our newest product: Open Garden. We put our knowledge of electronics and sensors at the service of gardening and hydroponics, trying to help all of you interested in gardening and plants. Open Garden is a platform for garden control using sensors oriented both exterior and interior gardening or even hydroponic farming. The aim of the platform is to measure parameters such as Soil moisture (Indoor & Outdoor kits), Water sensors: pH, Conductivity, Temperature (Hydroponics kit), and Temperature, Humidity and Light (All kits)...Open Garden programming has been developed as Open Source so that users can access the source code to customize and adapt to their needs..."

Well probably discuss some Arduino gardening applications at the May 15 meeting, so if youre interested in either automated gardening or the video tutorials about the basics of Arduino, come to The Link at 1385 8th Street, Arcata, CA, USA, from 6 to 8 PM on Thursday, May 15.

Hope to see you at The Link! If you have questions about the Humboldt Microcontrollers community, send me (Bob Waldron) an email at arcatabob (at) gmail [dott] com.

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Humboldt Microcontrollers Group June 12 Meeting Notes

Getting started on this post much later than usual, so it will be just a few comments about what happened at tonights meeting of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group.

Due to people being out of town and having prior commitments, there were only four participants in tonights meeting. We still had good discussions about microcontrollers and electronics, and I, at least, learned a few things about controlling motors with microcontrollers (MCUs).

TI Tiva C LaunchPad board

Ed started out the night by showing us the powerful $20 Texas Instruments (TI) Tiva C LaunchPad board he received recently from TI. He hasnt a chance to hook up any fancy demonstrations with it for the group yet, but he did seem pretty happy with it. Well likely have a blog post about it from him in the next few weeks after hes had a chance to work with it.

Ed also brought his less expensive TI LaunchPad board which he is using for some capsense proximity sensing. He talked about that at the previous Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting, and brought the small LaunchPad to demonstrate some capsense work hed done since that previous meeting.

The third item Ed brought were some nice oscilloscope screenshots of the PWM (pulse width modulation) control of the DC motor, since part of tonights meeting was planned to be discussion of Jeremy Blums Arduino Basics #5 video tutorial about motors and transistors. Youll see those oscilloscope screenshots in an upcoming blog post. Ed explained what the screenshots showed and the difference between the various trace patterns.

Nick explains how the chicken coop door opener will work.

Nick brought the work-in-progress door opening mechanism for his new chicken coop. Im trying to talk him into writing one or several blog posts about the project, but so far his time has been focused on finishing the design and getting it built. He powered the circuitry for opening and closing the door and showed us how it works. One of the door automation components is a part off an old Willys Jeep, which makes his chicken coop door more interesting and a bit unique. Its unlikely many other chicken coop doors in the USA have parts from a Willys Jeep. We just hope the chickens appreciate the history and character of their coop door!

After Nick demoed the chicken door opener, he talked briefly about the microcontroller educational kit he received from TI. Were looking forward to him bringing that to an upcoming meeting and maybe writing a blog post about the kit.

First circuit in #5 video tutorial

Next we spent some time talking about microcontrollers and motors, with the discussions being primarily to help me understand how circuits should be designed for controlling motors with an MCU and how the components for the circuits should be selected or sized. After we got most of my no load current, voltage operating range, stall current and collector current questions answered about motors and transistors, the group helped me finish breadboarding the first exercise in the #5 video, Nick typed up the sketch for the Arduino to operate the motor, we plugged it into power -- and the setup worked perfectly. Voila!

This weekend, Ill go through that exercise again by myself to make sure I understand it, polish up the code in the sketch a bit so it has comments in it and so I understand what each part of the code is doing. Then Im hoping to work on the rest of the #5 video (although I still need to work on a couple previous videos in the series...).

One last thing discussed was the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group wiki. We started out with a Wikispaces wiki, but have decided to move away from that wiki service because they require everyone who wants to view their wikis to sign up for an account. Thats just annoying for how we want to use the microcontroller wiki. So Ed is hosting a MediaWiki site, and we hope to have that operational in the next week or two. Well put a link to the wiki on this blog once the site is up and running.

See you in two weeks (thats Thursday, June 26) for the next Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting.

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May 29 Second Meeting of Humboldt Microcontrollers Group

Short post tonight -- just got home from the second meeting of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group because it ran long. Which is a good thing, since people wouldnt have hung around past the nominal 8 PM meeting end time unless they were enjoying themselves.

We only had four people for most of tonights meeting, which is about half the size of the first meeting. We hope the low participation in tonights gathering was because the other people from the first meeting just couldnt make it to tonights meeting but are still interested and will be at future meetings.

About 2/3 of the way through the meeting, another person joined the group. He first had to find
someone to let him in the building because the doors to the Greenway Building were all locked. The front door had been propped open with a wooden wedge and the meeting information posted on the laminated sign on the front door saying to keep it open until 8 PM. Unfortunately either someone accidentally kicked the wedge out of the way or closed the door on purpose before 8 PM, because a couple people were unable to join the meeting because the door was locked.

I apologize to anyone who attempted to come to the meeting tonight and was locked out. To address the issue of the front door being automatically locked after 5:30 PM, for the next meeting (on June 12) we will:

1. Put the wedge in the door to hold it open and write the meeting info on the laminated sign.
2. Check on the door at 6:30 and 7:00 PM to make sure its still open.
3. Put a Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting sign on the front door with a phone number of someone in the meeting to call if the door is locked.

We also might meet down in the front lobby area at the big round table. That way we can see the front door and know if it gets closed during the meeting.

We talked about a wide range of subjects in tonights meeting, but the two primary microcontroller topics were CapSense and IR sensors for motion detectors. Ill write more about those two tomorrow -- too late tonight for technical topics.

For the June 12 meeting of the group, well be focusing on the #5 Blum video tutorial, which covers motors and transistors. If there are people new to microcontrollers at the meeting, a group will split off into a separate area to talk about the first Jeremy Blum Basics of Arduino videos. The more experienced people will cover breadboarding or other work they did on the topic of motors and transistors, as well as any specific exercises or questions they had from the #5 video.

Hope to see lots more people at the June 12 meeting, including anyone who was inadvertently locked out tonight...

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Microcontrollers And A Humboldt Laser Harp

I need to find out if laser harps are a fairly common item in Arcata and Humboldt County. If theyre not, building one could be a perfect project for the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group.

Laser Harp At Concert

First of all, if you dont know what a laser harp is, well turn to Wikipedia, which says:

"A laser harp is an electronic musical instrument and laser lighting display, consisting of several laser beams to be blocked, in analogy with the plucking of the strings of a harp, in order to produce sounds...They have also been used in public art installations...Playing the actual sound is usually handled by connecting the laser harp to a synthesizer, sampler or computer."

The picture at the right shows what one version of a laser harp looks like. The instrument can take many forms.Watching this short video clip will help understand what a laser harp is -- Bucharest Laser Powered Harp. The Bucharest video shows how engaging a laser harp will be for people walking past it. If you want to see someone playing music on a laser harp, watch Tetris Theme on Laser Harp. The Bucharest is a relatively simple version, something that would be a good exercise to build before attempting something like the Tetris laser harp.

Tetris Laser Harp

There are plans available for building a laser harp, many of which use an Arduino. Some plans have to be purchased, while other are free. It looks like a proof of concept might be something along the lines of the Ladyada laser harp exercise (pictures were on the page yesterday, but Flickr was having problems displaying them at the time I uploaded this post). That mini-project or one similar to it lets you learn the basics of sensing the laser beam and programming the microcontroller to respond when the beam is broken.

Once youve been able to generate music by breaking the beam, the next step would be to set up several laser beams so each one can be a different note. I havent researched laser harps enough to know which would be a better route to go -- building one like the Bucharest laser harp in the short video linked above or building the one whose design is on open-source-energy and is quoted at ~ $100 for the parts and uses an Arduino Uno. It might be

Open-source-energy Laser Harp

quicker to build the open-source-energy one because it has all the plans and Arduino code. If I can recruit enough people to split the cost of the parts, or find a sponsor who wants to cover the whole cost, my vote would be to build the open-source-energy laser harp.

Finally, after weve gotten experience building a multi-beam harp and having it produce decent music, then we could design our own, more like the Bucharest one, thats designed for interaction with people who are walking by. To have the laser harp be interesting looking even if the room isnt totally dark, some people have built in fog machine capabilities so the fog will highlight the lasers. The fog would make the design a lot more complicated, but it might make the laser harp fun to use in a lot more environments.

The next step in deciding whether to move ahead on this is to find out if anyone else in the area is interested in building a laser harp. If I can find another person to work on it with me, we can at least do the proof of concept circuit. Then wed have to choose a design for the multi-beam harp, price out the bill of materials and come up with a way to cover those costs.

If youre interested in working on a laser harp, send an email to arcatabob (at) gmail {dott} com. We can get together, figure out if we want to start with the Ladyada single beam exercise (if we can get the parts list, circuit designs and Arduino code) or if theres another low cost starter project to learn the basics.

Lasers are always a good thing to have in projects!

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Humboldt Microcontrollers Community

Microcontrollers are about to become a part of my life.

That is to say, Im going to learn a few things about microcontrollers, which were already involved with many parts of my life.

If you live in Arcata, CA, or elsewhere in the Humboldt County region, you should consider participating in a new activity in the area -- the Humboldt Microcontrollers community. To start out with, were going to meet every other Thursday from 6 to 8 PM at 1385 8th Street, Arcata, CA, USA. The first meeting will be this week, on May 15, 2014. The purpose of this new intentional community is to get together on a regular basis with other people who want to learn about microcontrollers and / or want to share what they know about them.

If you like microcontrollers or are interested in learning more about them and you live in Arcata, Eureka, McKinleyville, Fortuna, Trinidad, Blue Lake or any of the other fine parts of the Humboldt region, please connect with us. Even if you cant show up every other week, wed love to find out who all the members and potential members of this new community are and how we can work with you, help you learn and learn from you.

So what are microcontrollers?? Theyre basically little computers. Wikipedia says a microcontroller is "a small computer on an integrated circuit containing a processor core, memory, and programmable input/output peripherals...used in automatically controlled products and devices, such as automobile engine control systems, implantable medical devices, remote controls, office machines, appliances, power tools, toys and other embedded systems." So youve likely got a few of them in your car, in your electric drill, in lots of the newer electronic toys, in your cable tv set top box, and in your fish locator.

The Humboldt Microcontrollers community activities are being organized by the Humboldt Makers Group, a local organization of people interested in DIY activities of all sorts, a group for people who are part of, or would like to be part of, the maker movement, even if they dont know what the maker movement is. Probably the best way for now to keep track of the Humboldt Microcontroller community activities is to watch the Humboldt Makers Facebook page. Microcontroller community activities will be posted there as well as a few pictures of microcontroller projects and other topics of interest to makers.

Im going to use this blog to reach out to people in the Humboldt area to invite them to participate in the Humboldt Microcontrollers community if they already know what microcontrollers are. Im also reaching out to others in the region who dont know what microcontrollers are, but might really enjoy or benefit from working with microcontrollers and making things that are controlled by or assisted by microcontrollers. It will be lots of fun seeking out both types of people, meeting new people who can teach me lots of interesting stuff about microcontrollers and new people who I might be able to help learn about these powerful devices. Or if I cant teach them, maybe I can learn with them.

Im also using this blog to chronicle my Adventures With Microcontrollers. Im starting my learning pretty much from scratch. Meaning I havent programmed these devices or built anything with them before. And I dont know much about electronics. So if you read a little about microcontrollers and think it might be fun to learn a little more, please join me and a few other people every other Thursday. Dont worry if you dont know anything about microcontrollers or electronics -- show up anyway. And dont worry if you cant come on May 15 -- just show up whenever you can. Check the Humboldt Makers Facebook page for up-to-date info on meeting times.

Tomorrow Ill write a little bit about the Arduino, the single board microcontroller were going to use for learning the basics of what a microcontroller is, how you connect and program them, and what you can use them for. In other future blog posts, Ill talk about interesting and useful applications for microcontrollers in Humboldt Country, do more in-depth explanations of what the different parts of a microcontroller are, explain what electronic components are needed to learn about and use microcontrollers, and Ill try to find reasons and ways to convince Humboldt area people to come join us in the learning and sharing of knowledge and skill with microcontrollers.

If you have questions about the Humboldt Microcontrollers community, send me (Bob Waldron) an email. The address is arcatabob [at] gmail (dott) com.

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Microcontrollers Aquaponics and Humboldt

I know very little about aquaponics at the moment, but I have a feeling that may change over the next year or so...

Someone I met today is interested in microcontrollers and aquaponics (a mashup of aquaculture and hydroponics). I think he mentioned that hes planning to build an aquaponics system soon. And Im pretty sure a member of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group previously told me theyre very interested in working with someone to build an aquaponics system. In addition to those two people being interested in working on a fish & plants system, the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation & Conservation District is involved with this topic, as illustrated by a video clip from Fall 2013. The news blurb reports that,

"...On Sunday the greenhouse received 75 white Sturgeon fish about six inches in size. The idea behind the greenhouse is to farm fish and plants in a mutually beneficial cycle by using the fish waste to convert to plant food. Project coordinator Erika Blackwell...said she wants Humboldt county to grow into an aquaculture industry. “The fish being in the system means we can start planting our vegetable starts and get our produce to market. There is this huge opportunity to provide locally raised sustainable raised fish. The climate is perfect for aquaculture..."

So tonight I did a brief online search for microcontrollers and aquaponics and found a few online resources for people interested in this topic. A few of the resources are linked below. There are lots more for those interested in this subject.

Ill have to ask John (the gentleman I met today) and Nick (a member of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group) if either of them saw Rik Kretzingers aquaponics display at this years Maker Faire in San Mateo. Rik is from the Bay area and has been doing aquaponics for a number of years. His 2014 Maker Faire display topic was Internet of Farming: Arduino-Based Aquaponics. Rik authors the Aquaponic DIY Automation blog. Maybe in the coming months we can talk Rik into making a visit up to Humboldt county to talk about his experiences with fish, plants and MCUs. And we can ask Erika Blackwell if we can do a tour of her Samoa system, and maybe see if there are opportunities for collaboration -- perhaps the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group can help her set up some low-cost controls systems if there are experiments shed like to try but for which she doesnt have the budget to do a full-scale commercial installation.

A couple other MCU / fish / plants projects to be found on the web include a Make: Project called "Aquaponics -- Online Temperature and Humidity" and an Instructables project called "Arduino Aquaponics: JSON Pump Controller." Rik or John might know of better online forums for this topic, but the Backyard Aquaponics forum seemed to have a fairly active community based on my brief visit to the site.

Lastly, it seems almost too good to be true, and I didnt take time to investigate it fully yet, but there might be seed money available to help get a new aquaponics project started in Humboldt Country. The Aquaponics Association has a micro grant program where members of the association can apply for grants of up to $1000 "to increase public awareness, understanding, and knowledge of aquaponics as an educational tool, a hobby, or a business in providing a source of fresh, local, healthy food." Thats an opportunity well have to look into more closely...

I know a lot more about aquaponics now than I did when I woke up this morning!

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