IEEE SB UPM Conducts Arduino Workshop School Program
SERDANG: IEEE SB Universiti Putra Malaysia, Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, UPM and IEEE Circuit & System Society (CASS) Malaysia Chapter successfully conducted an Arduino Workshop for students recently.
Three instructors and 19 facilitators from UPM and 35 students from Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Seri Indah, Selangor participated in the workshop held at the Microprocessor Laboratory, Faculty of Engineering, UPM on May 28.
The students were introduced to the Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering UPM by its Head of Department, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Wan Zuha Wan Hasan while Dr. Haslina Jaafar conducted the briefing for the Institute of Electric & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and Circuits & Systems Society (CASS).
The workshop was divided into two sessions - hands-on and demonstration. At the beginning of the hands-on session, the students were introduced to basic electronic components such as breadboard, jump wire, resistors, light emitting diode (LED), light dependent resistor (LDR), switch, potentiometer and the Arduino board.
They were also introduced to codes prepared by the committee. They were asked to complete certain tasks that required them to modify the given codes.
After the hands-on session, the facilitators demonstrated several Arduino applications such as in Smart Home, e-Piano and Steady Hand Game.
The Smart Home module is designed to control the light sensor, rain sensor, burglar alarm and fire alarm. The e-Piano module uses button switches as its keypads that produce different sound for each button.
Meanwhile, the Steady Hand Game requires the players to move a coil across a designed trail without touching the trail. If the coil touches the trail, the buzzer will go off and the game is over.
Secretary of IEEE CASS Malaysia Chapter and advisor for IEEESB UPM, Dr Noor Ain Kamsani said that the workshop had successfully provided a platform for the school students to learn and apply microcontroller technology and exposed them to the Electrical and Electronics Engineering field.
SMK Seri Indah teacher, Puan Zaliza Muhammad said such activity was beneficial for the students as many of them were technical engineering major.
The workshops also benefited the IEEE Student Members as they could learn about the technology and at the same time serve the community by teaching the students.
