This week we went to CU FABLAB to learn how to make with Arduino, laser/vinyl cutters, digital fabrics!

I got the chance to try my hand at Arduino, which turned out to be super fascinating! Sorry for the photo spam that’s going to happen in literally a second, but it was a very trigger-happy day for me.

^ A shot of the inside of the lab from where I was sitting

^ Jeff giving us a presentation

We took a tour of the Fablab after Jeff’s presentation (didn’t take any pictures), and sat down at the Arduino section with Colten. He gave us a broad overview of how it worked and ran us through a tutorial of how to make the LED blink on command as well as how to make the motor move.

^ My first contact with an Arduino board!

^ A closer look at the board

^ The front of an LED Arduino panel. I hope I can work with this one day!

^ The back of the panel….wonder how long it took to solder all those points…

^ The Arduino hooked up to an LED light and a motor!

This session was fascinating to me, and I’m glad to have the chance to try out this! When I was younger I was part of the robotics club, and we did something similar to this, just with Lego blocks that functioned like an Arduino. Being able to wire and reroute and program my own program made it super fun!

I would definitely come back during spring break to putter around the lab and try out more stuff. This has giving me many ideas to work with regarding the final project, and I’m super excited to get cracking on it!