Aquaponics is Fun

Yesterday I ordered the rest of electronic components to be able to do the first five Jeremy Blum Arduino Basics video tutorials (I hope), and the multimeter and soldering iron arrived from Adafruit. Today the sensor package from SparkFun arrived, and tonight I started the #3 Blum video tutorial.

Ive got most of the components needed for the Blum video tutorials, but I didnt have everything needed for the #3 video. I just watched the video and reviewed the electronics formulas that Jeremy explained and did the parts of the exercises that I could. As soon as the final order of components arrive, Ill be able to complete the #3 video.

After I finish the first five video tutorials, Im going to review all the exercises to make sure I understand all the component breadboard circuits I hooked up and all the programs I wrote. Up to this point, I understand some of what Ive done, but other parts of the exercises have just been copying exactly what Jeremy does in the videos, rather than understanding and being able to do it without any instructions. Ill update the wiki with the component information Im figuring out, with links to helpful resources and with the beginning programming concepts that are used in the exercises.

Speaking of the wiki, I found out that Wikispaces no longer gives unlimited accounts on their free wikis. You can now only have 5 accounts on a wiki unless you pay. Ed graciously offered to host the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group wiki on his server, so after he gets it set up, well start moving content over to his wiki. Well be using MediaWiki because thats the easiest one to get rolling on his server, and its a pretty familiar format because most people are familiar with Wikipedia, which uses MediaWiki.

Tomorrow night, May 29, is the second meeting of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group. Well be meeting from 6 to 8 PM at 1385 8th Street in Arcata, California, USA. People interested in microcontrollers or Arduinos are invited to join us -- the event is free, you dont have to know how to program microcontrollers, and theres no need to be a member of anything to participate.

Well meet first with everyone to discuss stuff everyone should hear or be involved in. Then well split into two groups -- the beginners who are interested in learning about microcontrollers, and the people with previous microcontroller experience who want to do MCU projects and learn or share microcontroller tricks that not everyone knows.

Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow at 6 PM!