Class Supplies

Here's some good things to get for your OPQ.

Batteries.  Both of these are good.  I will usually buy whichever one is (a) in stock at the USA warehouse and (b) cheaper at the time.

• Turnigy nano-tech 2200mah 3S 25~50C Lipo Pack (US Warehouse)
• ZIPPY Flightmax 2200mAh 3S1P 40C (USA Warehouse)

Battery Chargers.  These come in a couple of variations.

DC-only input.  You can make these work if you (a) buy a DC power supply or (b) have an old PC power supply sitting around and are willing to do a bit of connector soldering.  If that's the case, buy some 4mm banana connectors and I'll show you how to do it.

Both of these are similar.  The IMAX brand has a better brand reputation than the Turnigy  brand. I can't quite make out which cables come with the IMAX, but it may be that some extra cables will be necessary from the (tiny) picture.

• Turnigy Accucel-6 50W 6A Balancer/Charger w/ Accessories (US Warehouse)
• IMAX B6 50W 5A Charger/Discharger 1-6 Cells (GENUINE) (US Warehouse)

I've got one of these.  It's basically four of the Accucel-6 chargers in one case.  You need to buy extra power leads, I think it only comes with one set.

• HobbyKing™ Quattro 4x6S Lithium Polymer Multi Charger (US Warehouse)

AC/DC Input.  These will work with AC wall power as well.

Here's the IMAX with AC input:

• IMAX B6-AC Charger/Discharger 1-6 Cells (GENUINE)

Note for the above Hobby King links:

• these are all links to the USA warehouse.  If you order from the international warehouse shipping is a lot longer.  Make sure you're ordering "USA Warehouse" items if this is important to you.

APC Props

These are good props, but more expensive and only come in a single color. APC props are proudly made in California!  The "P" props are the reverse orientation prop.  The price is per prop, so be sure and order two (at least) of the "SF" ("slow fly") and "SFP" ("slow fly pusher") models.

• 8x3.8SF
• 8x3.8SFP
• I think the 9x4.7SF and 9x4.7SFP sizes will also work but haven't checked them out.

HobbyKing Props

These are similar to the GemFan props.  Lots of colors. 8038, 8045, and 9047 are good sizes.

• Multi-Rotors & Parts > Propellers > 8 to 10 inches

GemFan Props

Super-popular, these are sometimes hard to find.  A lot of people like them because they're lighter and (the theory goes) will break and protect the motor shaft.

• Heli Direct

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Arduino Class

 A while back I taught an Arduino class, and friend and coworker Josh Minor snapped some pictures.

 Soaking it in...

 It blinks!

 And another one blinks. It is not a coincidence!

 Preparing to blink.

 Contemplating the blink!

Why does it blink?  Electricity!

Arduino class notes, class 1

These are the class notes for a 4-part, 8-hour class Introductory Arduino class I'm teaching.  The class consists mostly of programmers fluent in C, which means we won't have to spend much time on the software side of things.  A few of the people have some hardware experience; the majority don't.  A couple of people are actually experts cleverly disguised as students, helping me out!

We're using the Sparkfun Inventor's Kit and tutorial.  Each student is provided with a kit. I bought one of these for myself last year and thought it was a pretty nice kit. (update:  The new version of the kit is even better.  Onward and Upward!)  After the last class I'll provide a wrapup with any notes regarding what pieces were more and less useful, and what supplemental pieces might be used.

SparkFun Inventors Kit

• main page
• guide
• circuit overlay

Preliminary Assignment

• Bring your computer to each class
• Download and install the Arduino software: http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

Class Breakdown

These are the four areas we'll be focussing on.

• general electronics -- electricity, circuits, etc.
• arduino specific electronics -- input, output, digital/analog control, etc.
• arduino programming and libraries -- C coding, libraries for doing interesting things
• the big picture -- interfacing and combining the lower-level pieces of knowledge into useful or interesting projects

Topics Covered

• electrical circuits: much handwaving
• setting up the boards
• naming of parts
• downloading arduino environment
• running the blink program
• expanding the blink program to tricolor led

Notes

• Needed to spend more time on breadboards, how they're laid out, how to complete a circuit with them, what the power lines are used for.
• The Sparkfun project templates are nice, but don't bother attaching them to the breadboard.
• Because you won't attach them to the breadboard, ignore the two-pin headers on the corners of the board.  They're only used to attach the paper template to the breadboard.
• We had one kit that had trouble making a connection -- it never showed up on the TTY list.  It turns out to be a faulty USB cable.  Fortunately this happened to one of our more intrepid students who diagnosed the problem right away.
• All the other hardware worked with no problem.
• The colors of the wires have no intrinsic meaning.  You typically use red and black for power and ground, but interestingly the Sparkfun kit has no red or black wires.
• Cover the software portion of the blink lab first.  It looks like the Arduino people test the boards with the blink program, so when you plug everything in for lab 1 the LED starts blinking before the students do anything.
• If you have access to the boards before you pass them out, it might be nice to download a null program to avoid this.
• The wiring diagram for the first blink lab has a wire to the power bus that serves no purpose.  This should be eliminated, since it caused students confusion as to what it was doing (nothing).

Khan Academy Circuit Tutorials

This is homework for the next class.  Be cool, sign up for a Khan Academy account, and register me as your coach! My ID is http://facebookid.khanacademy.org/500063084

• Circuits (part 1)
• Circuits (part 2)
• Circuits (part 3)
• Circuits (part 4)

Next Week

We'll continue with:

• more on electrical theory, courtesy of Khan Academy.
• Ohm's Law <-- we must obey it!
• current, voltage, resistance
• Some resistor experiments

and more parts (won't get to all of these, will continue in class 3)

• switches
• sensors
• potentiometers
• motors
• servos
• relays
• pizeo buzzer
• serial I/O

and here's where it will get interesting:

• Combining Input + Output -- the basis of interesting projects!