After COVID-19 caused the cancellation of many summer programs, this fundamentals of Arduino workshop offered virtually by MIT gave me the opportunity to extend upon my experience from high school programming. With the MKR IoT bundle, I was able to start doing more complicated projects. We learned about transistors, state machines, and the internet of things!

After an intro to basic electronic components that are vital for any circuit, we dove straight into the wifi connectivity feature of the Arduino MKR1000 micro controller.

As shown in the circuitry for the wireless weather reported, an MKR1000 board was hooked up to an LCD display and a couple buttons. When combined with the code shown below, the MKR1000 was able to connect to the wifi and display the weather on the LCD display. It did this by first connecting to a weather website and reading the reported temperature on there. Once collected, it could display that same temperature on the LCD display. The code used for this project is included below.

Although this project was probably not the easiest way to get a weather report, it demonstrates a basic form of a computer connecting to the internet and displaying websites on a monitor. It would be very cool to continue exploring the electronics that make computers work and learn how to manipulate them.

After we figured out how to connect the MKR1000 to the internet, the next step was to connect everyone's MKR1000 to each other through the internet. By connecting boards to each other through the internet, the goal was for people to control each other's MKR1000. Since the MKR1000 was now hooked up to a car chassis with motor and a drive controller, we could virtually bridge the distance that COVID-19 had necessitated.

Unfortunately, I lost the source code for this project when I changed computers during the summer. However, I assure you that I had a blast creating it. At the end of the Arduino course, the mentors were able to make inputs on their computers and cause outputs on my MKR1000 board. The mentor wanted the car to turn left, and I watched my car somehow turn left! It was very interesting to see this tangible connection between two different devices connected to the internet, and it would be fun to continue pursuing the programming of electronics.