Using Arduino for Your Final Year University Project
When it comes to final year projects, graduates can tell you what hell they go through even just deciding on which project to implement. During my final year at Egerton University in 2012 ,I was in the same dilemma. Different ideas where crossing my mind, from Clinic Management Systems to Online Booking System. The idea of a hardware project had never crossed my mind. Thanks to my Advance Circuit Design lecturer Mr. Justine Omwoyo who suggested we do a hardware project. That’s when hell came down on me.
Together with my best campus friend Timothy Cheptileh, we decided to go the hardware/electronics way, not knowing what exactly we were getting ourselves into. Until two months to the presentation day I had no working system. That’s when I had to rethinking my plan of using ATMEGA32 Microcontroller which I purchase from RoboKits India and join my friend Timothy who had purchased Arduino UNO from the US which was shipped into Kenya via DHL. My Arduino project will be a story for another day.
Now lets talk about you. If you are in the same situation I was into about 3 years ago you can take some few advise from those of us who went through the same.
What is Arduino
To you or me, it’s like a little computer you can program to do things, and it interacts with the world through electronic sensors, lights, and motors. In essence, it makes some truly hardcore electronics projects accessible to anyone – so artists and creative types can concentrate on making their ideas a reality. It’s the ultimate tinkering tool
To quote:
Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.
What Project Can You Do With Arduino?
Before I tell you what makes the Arduino such a revolutionary device, I think it’s better to show you some of my favorite projects that have been made with the Arduino.
Arduino Quadcopter – (Mobile Control)
It uses one Arduino Uno to control the motors based on information received on the Xbee module. Controls are sent from the iOS device wirelessly to a laptop into Processing which then feeds them in to Arduino Base Station (Project by Kyle Fieldus)
Arduino Insect Robot
Arduino Project Robot IR “The Beast”
Why Arduino?
- It is an open-source project, software/hardware is extremely accessible and very flexible to be customized and extended
- It is flexible, offers a variety of digital and analog inputs, SPI and serial interface and digital and PWM outputs
- It is easy to use, connects to computer via USB and communicates using standard serial protocol, runs in standalone mode and as interface connected to PC/Macintosh computers
- It is inexpensive, around 30 euro per board and comes with free authoring software
- Arduino is backed up by a growing online community, lots of source code is already available and we can share and post our examples for others to use, too!
Where to Buy Arduino?
A google search can bring thousands of results on online stores which sell Arduino boards and other electronics gadgets which are used together with Arduino. But if you are in Kenya the best store to get Arduino boards I would suggest you look at Nerokas Engineering Solutions
Where to Learn Arduino?
If you want to get started with Arduino, learn the basics from the official Arduino website Tutorials. Another good place you can look at is Instructables and also Ladyada.
If you need more info on how to get started with Arduino, feel free to contact me anytime. Have a lovely day.
The post Using Arduino for Final Year University Project appeared first on Smart Tech Diary.