Electronic Dice Machine: Project B
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| The breadboard stripped down and ready for the next adventure. |
I was pretty disappointed with myself that I didn't get my Project A debugged before I had to take the breadboard apart for this week's assignment. Then I reread that first objective of the class is to "understand the driving forces behind the maker movement and the characteristics of a 'maker' with the goal of connecting making with your current practices." As an educator, that means play around with being a maker so you know how to enhance your campus with this movement cropping up everywhere. You also practice being the student complete with trials, errors, frustrations, fails, and triumphs. We need to remember what that feels like so we can connect better with our own students.
So, I stripped the breadboard down to the main red and black wire and started planning the new build. The push button project from the book (project #5) is done with 2 push buttons. I decided to start with one and see where it took me.
Goal:
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| The White box is Pin 11 |
Materials:
7 LEDs
5 resistors
1 push button
11 jumper wires
Procedure:
1. Assemble the circuit
GND → -
5V → +
Pin 5 → +RightYellowLED - → +LeftYellow - → resistor → - (circle pair)
Pin 7 → +RightYellowLED - → +LeftYellow - → resistor → - (middle LED)
Pin 9 → +RightYellowLED - → +LeftYellow - → resistor → - (triangle pair)
Pin 11 → +RightYellowLED - → +LeftYellow - → resistor → - (square pair)
Pin 13 → +PushButton + → resistor → +
-PushButton → -
2. Write the code
3. Upload and test it all
I had a great first run, but I quickly realized some of the LEDs weren't lighting up at all. I tweaked the circuit a bit and got some more to light up, but they were very faint.
I decided to keep this video short for easier uploading and debug some more off camera.
I found both coding errors and circuit errors that needed to be addressed. With some perseverance, I was able to get all six numbers to display! It felt like I'd climbed a mountain and was on top of the world.
My youngest entered the room just in time for me to tell him, "Push that button." He was impressed just be the button being there. When he saw what it would do, his face lit up brighter than the LEDs, and he asked, "Can I use this for D&D?"
Exploration
Graph of 100 electronic rolls
My son already want to use it for roll playing games. It's quiter. The current limitation is that it can only do one kind of die (this project being a six sided die). I could see on a larger scale, words being displayed as a scrolling message.
Reflections:
I struggled getting started on this project for three reasons: I didn't want to take apart Project B's circuit until I'd debugged it, I was worried I'd struggle as much as Project B and I wasn't emotionally ready for another challenge, my grown children were home visiting from out of town for Thanksgiving.
Once everyone had left to go home, I looked again at the assignments and was relieved the deadline had been extended. With the pressure gone, I thought I'd just see what I could get done on the new project. I was hoping to finish sooner than later so my peers weren't waiting on me for their reviews. I was pleasantly surprised by how fast this build fell together. I had some bumps, but I figured them out fairly quickly.
The data from the electronic rolls surprised me. I thought there would be an almost even distribution. Perhaps with a larger sampling, it will level out. The discrepancy doesn't show as much on the pie chart because the spreadsheet auto set the bar graph to start at 12 rather than the full span of 0-20. I decided to keep it that way in case I use these in a classroom setting so we can talk about unfair data displays. Always check the range when reading graphs. I love that the sampling is 100 to further support percentage lessons.
I'm not going to beat myself up about not getting to the debugging of previous builds. This blog will remain after the class is done and I always have the option of returning on my own ambition.
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