I took the new Fundamentals Cert exam tonight. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable on programming, electronics, and Arduino specifically, so I expected to do well. I passed, but with a score of 77 out of 100. Seriously?
Are test results preserved such that I can find out which questions I missed? Obviously the answer sheet is not going to be available.
TWRackers:
I took the new Fundamentals Cert exam tonight.
The what?
You can find information on the Arduino Fundamentals Certification here:
What's the accreditation?
I see it's based on the starter kit, which I know has at least one servo project. I've never seen the starter kit's book, but I wonder if it advocates powering the servo off the Arduino 5V, like the servo examples do?
If anyone (OP?) has the kit's booklet, I'm keen to see that circuit. If (and I do say if) it happens to connect a servo to the Arduino 5V, then that's a quick way of assessing the test's worth.
Has the starter kit book ever been updated since these comments?
Has anyone other than the Arduino "factory" (for want of a better word) a) vetted the book on which the test is based and b) vetted the questions to see if they are a good test of the book?
edit: In other words has anyone c) vetted the certification to see if it has any meaning whatever, and d) see if it's worth 30US?
Arduino Fundamentals is an online exam that provides official certification
Who are the officials?
jubukraa:
If anyone (OP?) has the kit's booklet, I'm keen to see that circuit.
There are a couple links to PDFs of the Arduino Projects Book that comes with the starter kit here:
https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=666271.msg4487400#msg4487400
There are two projects that use the servo: Mood Cue and Knock Lock.
Well if the book in that link is current, it still has the wrong explanation of Ohm's Law with a led, that was mentioned in the thread I linked above.
From the linked book, page 30:
In the circuit shown in Fig. 5, you’re supplying 5 volts. The resistor offers 220 ohms
resistance. To find the amperage used by the LED, replace the values in the equation.
You should have 5=I*220
From the thread I linked (note the date):
AndersJJ:
The most obvious one is on page 30, where Ohms law is misused. They totally neglect the voltage-drop over the LED, which at this voltage levels is a big error. The calculations are thus wrong, and the conclusions in error.
And Mood Cue in that linked book does power the servo off the Arduino.
So that book in the link (which may or may not be the version shipping with the kit) is dodgy (being polite), so if it's the one the test is based on, so too is the test.
I should note that the copyright on the PDFs was 2012.
Maybe 6 months ago, I was assigned the job of checking the content of the project book for broken links and the copyright on the book I was working with was 2015. I'd guess other updates were made in addition to the links, but don't know exactly what was changed.
The book is under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license, so there is a good chance the updated version is available somewhere on the web for download.
If you spot any errors, feel free to submit a report via the support form:
Thanks!
(I assume the 'Newbie' tag refers to my presence on the Forum, not to Arduinos in general....)
I wasn't working from the Project book, just from my programming, electronics, and Arduino experience. I would welcome an opportunity to verify that the exam's expected answers are correct. I don't believe that I got nearly ¼ of the answers wrong.
If there is somebody with Arduino who can contact me on this via email, I would appreciate it. If folks have to pay $30 to take the test, the test should be accurate. I don't believe it is.