Open Source Electronics for Laboratory Physics

Open-source electronic devices are transforming laboratory physics education in unprecedented ways. More and more physics instructors have found that open-source electronics, such as Arduino, can provide them with wonderful teaching and learning opportunities. They can develop new laboratory activities and demonstrations, as well as exploratory and advanced projects, often involving their students. The cost is usually low. Participants of this workshop will dive right into interfacing sensors with Arduino compatible platforms. They will acquire first-hand experience constructing circuits and interfacing with sonic rangers, photogates, temperature probes, force gauges, accelerometers, magnetometers, SD cards, displays, user interfaces, and other common sensors, devices, and useful software. The workshop also provides basic training on computer programming and soldering. Each participant will be provided sensors and a standalone data acquisition device for their workshop activities. They can take everything home, except for force gauges. Participants must bring a laptop

End-user experiences of visual and textual programming environments for Arduino

Arduino is an open source electronics platform aimed at hobbyists, artists, and other people who want to make things but do not necessarily have a background in electronics or programming. We report the results of an exploratory empirical study that investigated the potential for a visual programming environment to provide benefits with respect to efficacy and user experience to end-user programmers of Arduino as an alternative to traditional text-based coding. We also investigated learning barriers that participants encountered in order to inform future programming environment design. Our study provides a first step in exploring end-user programming environments for open source electronics platforms

Designing experiments using digital fabrication in structural dynamics

In engineering, traditional approaches aimed at teaching concepts of dynamics to engineering students include the study of a dense yet sequential theoretical development of proofs and exercises. Structural dynamics are seldom taught experimentally in laboratories since these facilities should be provided with expensive equipment such as wave generators, data-acquisition systems, and heavily wired deployments with sensors. In this paper, the design of an experimental experience in the classroom based upon digital fabrication and modeling tools related to structural dynamics is presented. In particular, all experimental deployments are conceived with low-cost, open-source equipment. The hardware includes Arduino-based open-source electronics whereas the software is based upon object-oriented open-source codes for the development of physical simulations. The set of experiments and the physical simulations are reproducible and scalable in classroom-based environments.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Development of a test bench for the electronics of ionizing radiationdetectors

In the present final degree project a low cost test bench is presented. A test bench is an envi-ronment used to verify the correctness of devices. In this case, the test bench is used to test preamplifiers and digitizers of the nuclear instrumentation laboratory. These instruments are used for ionizing particle detection. The initial problematic of the project was to investigate if it was possible to do a testing working bench with a cheap digital circuit as microcontrollers. After a study of the actual market, the Arduino Due was chosen. Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. In the initial stage of the project, the attention was focused on the documentation about the Arduino boards. It was quickly observed that the sampling time delivered by the Aduino IDE was not acceptable for a nuclear test bech. When inquiring into the technical datasheet of the Atmel SAM3X microchip, used by the Arduino Due, it was achieved making signals with sampling time acceptable for nuclear instrumentation. Once discovered the potential of Arduino Due, a GUI was made to fully customize the shape of the pulses generated by the Arduino board. Therefore, the development of a cheap testing workbench was achieved

Printed Circuit Board Design with Open-Source Software

Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design allows for the creation of the modern-day electronic systems. Open-source PCB design software allows people to easily access, modify, share, and collaborate on electronic projects. This project created several designs demonstrating various PCB design techniques for a keyboard interface, a transmission line test card, and a 2.4 GHz antenna. KiCad EDA is a cross-platform and open-source electronics design automation suite and was used for creating the boards in this project. Open-source software has few restrictions and no licensing costs, other commercial PCB design packages include Altium Designer

Intelligence and control of a bio-adapted light

Treballs Finals de Grau de Física, Facultat de Física, Universitat de Barcelona, Any: 2015, Tutors: Blas Garrido Fernández, Sergio Hernández Márquez i Adrià Huguet FerranThe aim of this project is to give intelligence to lighting systems based on LEDs. In order to optimize the outcome it is necessary to control the system and its surroundings, using electronic devices to transmit, receive and treat the data. For this purpose we use Arduino, an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. This essay explains the design and the implementation of an electronic device capable of controlling a bio-adapted lighting system with LED technology

Apnoea-Pi: Sleep disorder monitoring with open-source electronics and acoustics

Apnoea is a sleep disorder that affects an increasing number of adults causing harm from fatigue to a growing chance of heart problems. Apnoea disorders can be treated but advanced monitoring and diagnosing tools are needed to identify its strand and offer adequate treatment. Therefore, Apnoea tracking is vital to help keep patients healthy. Sleep Apnoea can cause a number of conditions such as fatigue, high blood pressure, liver functionality and an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. These complications make it necessary to monitor as many potential patients as possible by designing an instrument that is accurate, comfortable to use, fit for purpose, cost effective and with embedded computation capabilities to store, process and transmit time series data. In this work we present Apnoea-Pi, an adaptation of our Acousto-Pi open source surface acoustic wave platform to monitor Apnoea in patients using ultrasonic humidity sensing

Learning Computational Thinking Using Open-Source Hardware-based Programming

One of the first most fundamental skills that freshman engineering students learn is computational thinking. Computation thinking is the thought process carried out to solve problems. To develop this skill set usually computer programming fundamentals are introduced using a specific programming language. This approach falls short in sustaining the students’ interest in engineering. To rekindle the students’ interest in engineering, we proposed the utilization of the open-source electronics prototyping platform “Arduino”. Introducing the students to hardware programming and having them use project-based approaches to develop their computational thinking skill set increased their interest in the subject matter and significantly improved their performance

Design of a Head Movement Navigation System for Mobile Telepresence Robot Using Open-source Electronics Software and Hardware

Head movement is frequently associated with human motion navigation, and an indispensable aspect of how humans interact with the surrounding environment. In spite of that, the incorporation of head motion and navigation is more often used in the VR (Virtual Reality) environment than the physical environment. This study aims to develop a robot car capable of simple teleoperation, incorporated with telepresence and head movement control for an on-robot real-time head motion mimicking mechanism and directional control, in attempt to provide users the experience of an avatar-like third person’s point of view amid the physical environment. The design consists of three processes running in parallel; Motion JPEG (MJPEG) live streaming to html-Site via local server, Bluetooth communication, and the corresponding movements for the head motion mimicking mechanism and motors which acts in accordance to head motion as captured by the Attitude Sensor and apparent command issued by the user. The design serves its purpose of demonstration with the usage of basic components and is not aimed to provide nor research with regards to user experience

Design of a measurement device for air pollution concentrations using an open-source electronics software and hardware system

Contaminates air killed million people each year and incurs a cost of living on medical treatment. Normally, the authority manages the environmental control by practicing the air quality monitoring strategy by using high-end instrumentations which were very costly and requires periodical maintenance. In this paper, a lowcost air quality monitoring system has been proposed to monitor the air quality. The system is an Arduino based device which is consisting of carbon monoxide sensor, ozone sensor, dust sensor, sulphur dioxide sensor, nitrogen dioxide sensor, temperature and humidity sensor and anemometer. The system is capable to monitor air quality such as carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and meteorological condition such as temperature and humidity. The average level of gas pollution, such as NO2 and ozone was recorded at 10.31 ppm and 17.31 ppm respectively. The developed device will help to monitor air quality in the residence and workplace environment. This system fills the gap between cost efficiency and reliability of other system architectures