Materials of Electronics in Nature (2020)
 Project Date |
|
|---|---|
 Collaborators |
Andy Quitmeyer |
 Location |
Las Cruces Research Station, Costa Rica |
CIID Costa Rica Interaction Design Programme 2020
This year, students learned basic electronics principles through a naturalist lens.
Workshop Schedule
Day 0: Workshop setup (soldering stations, material stations, learning areas, signage, Andy's in the wild toolkit)
Day 1:
Intro (outside under a bamboo grove). Soldering a drawdio kit. Learning about each of the components, following a trace on a PCB, drawing a circuit diagram.
Students make sounds with nature, recording a clip of themselves and share out.
Build the simplest circuit: a coin cell + LED. Build a coin cell holder. Challenge: Firefly attraction! Create a switch for the LED.
Night hike: use our new LED + switches to mimic firefly blinking patterns. Explore nature at night!
Concepts: traces, conductivity, resistivity, sound & oscillations, energy storage, water + conductivity, timer circuits
Tools: solder, multimeter, wire strippers
Materials: nature, pcbs, drawdio kit, copper tape, coin cell battery, binder clip, LEDs, wire
Day 2:
Simple switch shareout. Circuit review. What if we wanted to power LED with 9V battery? Adding resistor into the circuit, with V=IR.
Build simple circuit with resistor in breadboard.
Solar panels, an introduction. Explore the range of voltages and currents with multimeter and panel. Combine energy with actuation: LEDs, motors, etc. Create charge circuit.
Concepts: energy generation, energy storage, Ohm's law, overcurrent in LEDs, breadboards
Tools: breadboards, wire strippers, jumper cables
Materials: resistors, solar panels, motors, charge circuit, diodes
Day 3:
Exploring sensors and actuators in more depth: Resistive carbon paint, photo resistive sensors, magnetic reed switches, IR sensors. DIY potentiometers!
Life sketch with electronics. Mimic something in the environment in electronics. Presenting sketches in the afternoon.
Concepts: sensors and actuators, inputs and outputs,
Tools: hacking in the wild preparedness tools (see Wearable DiNa Studio by Hannah & Andy)
Materials: carbon paint, photo resistive cells, reed switches, IR sensors, potentiometers
Day 4:
Ultimate design exploration: Go out on a hike, ask a question about nature, use the tools you have to answer those questions or learn something about it.
Day 5:
Presentations of explorations and learnings, debrief, and play.
See more
WIP Doc (private)