Reviews, Health, and Other Stuff: Arduino

Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time. As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree.

Showing posts with label Arduino. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Product Review: ELEGOO UNO Project Basic Starter Kit with Tutorial and UNO R3 Compatible with Arduino IDE

This is a kit that has a good selection of components (jumper wires, LEDs, resistors, etc.) to go along with the Arduino R3 Uno board and a very tiny breadboard. The breadboard is basically the same size as the Arduino board (about 3" by 2") so you may want to get a larger breadboard depending on what you would be using it for.

It comes with a CD that has an older version of the Arduino software. The software is what you use to code the "sketches" (which are what Arduino programs are called), and a PDF file with a lot of basic projects to get you started using the board. All in all, a relatively good, inexpensive kit.

Friday, January 13, 2023

Product Review: SainSmart IIC/I2C/TWI Serial 2004 20x4 LCD Module Shield For Arduino UNO

The meager instructions that came with this (at least when I purchased it back in 2017) are pretty useless and incorrect. If you dig around online or look at the Amazon reviews you can find the correct instructions to get it to work. Basically, you have to check the l2C address (which is wrong in the instructions), check that you are using the correct l2C address, if your Arduino has more than one, and make sure you are giving it 5V of power. Once you get it working, it works as it should. I used it for a build for an independent study project, and once I got everything set up correctly, it worked as expected to display a message based on the amount of vibration detected from a piezoelectric sensor.

Friday, January 6, 2023

Book Review: Arduino For Dummies 1st Edition

The Arduino is a microcontroller that can be used to do anything from something as simple as causing an LED to illuminate to controlling a robot. However, if you are not all that adept at programming and/or building circuits, it can be somewhat daunting to use. I used one to build a vibration-sensing device for a class in my electrical engineering curriculum, and since I only knew the basics of programming, I got this to help figure out how to program the device. The book has a lot of good information in it and presents the information in an easily understandable way. If you have some experience and programming and know the basics of circuit design the book is easy to understand and use. The material may go over the head of a total novice, but you can definitely have beginner to intermediate skills/knowledge and easily follow along with the material.