As I write, I am busy on another computer programing an Arduino board to make little lights flash on and off. Thee guy next to me has made his play Billy Jean...at double speed, which is kind of annoying and fun at the same time.
Arduino is interesting. You have the little circuit board which you wire up, and then you connect it too the computer using a USB, write a program (heh), get it to run, and, if you're lucky, a little light flashes. Or Billy Jean plays at double speed.
It's so much fun!
To put this in a little bit of context, I'm in the middle of a two week synthetic-biology course. People keep trying to get me to do programing, which is slightly disturbing. I am enjoying playing with Arduino though. Almost as much as I enjoyed constructing the bed-side tables last night :D
I've been holding off getting an Arduino for months as I know I'd waste so much time playing with one if I got one.
ReplyDeleteHow does one relate to synthetic biology? Am I missing some obvious link?
Arduino are so much fun to play with. Even if, as in my case, you have very little idea what's going on.
ReplyDeleteI actually have no idea how it relates to synthetic biology. For the last two weeks they seem to have been trying to just introduce us to as many different things as possible. We will need software programming to model our systems, but hardware programming shouldn't really need to feature.
I found instructions for an automatic plant watering system using an Arduino in Make Magazine. Some friends and I are making it together in hopes of having plants that aren't constantly dying from neglect! Good luck on your project.
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