Hi,
I’ll be using the Elegoo Super Starter kit and teaching high school students this semester. I came across this software videos and the data visualization example interests me greatly.
In the example they are just using sine type data being sent out, but what sensors would be able to produce similar or interesting visualizations to control the line’s coordinates/colors or the aspects of the ovals. I’ll probably give the gyros a test with it, but is there anything in the kits that may produce interesting results? I think it would interest the students beyond just serial data monitoring or plotting. And maybe they can get a free license mentioned with some “real use”? Are visualizations like this used anywhere in real life?
Another option for displaying Arduino data on a PC is the Processing.org project. It allows for visualization projects in Java, Javascript, Python, and Arduino.
Cool, thanks, but it seems like a new language to use and how to get serial data from sensors is isn’t readily apparent. I may dig deeper, but I need something simple, makerplot looks just needs data sent to it, and maybe a few tweaks to it.
The students will have enough on their hands on the basic Arduinos stuff.
I’m testing the software now, maybe I’ll see about a license if it comes to it. I appreciate the feedback, but any response to my actual question?
It is based on Java, which is written with a C syntax. The only place it differs is when you go and build libraries and call them the syntax is a bit different. But your students should have little difficulty with that.
It is just what would be called the loop function on the Arduino is called the draw function in processing.
Thanks for the info on Processing, but makerplot-j is closer to PLC-HMI that I teach at a community college as well. I need to spend class time teaching the arduino, sensors, etc, and how it relates to industrial applications. I was just curious about the visualization aspect with sensors for some “cool effect” using the software.
I checked, we still have a license for the original makerplot that carries over, this version seems much much easier to develop an interface for instead of sticking to the canned ones, and the visualizations are nice.
Thanks again, I’m good with arduinos, but that example is makes my head spin! Way too complex for the average student (and me). Maybe I’m posting in the wrong forum area for what I’m looking for.
+1 for Processing. I can only speak from my experience but it was easy to pick up and play tinkering around with the numerous great example sketches in the various libraries to do interesting things with data visualization (I'm a fan of pushing my son's gaming PC to the limits by playing around with the Mandelbrot set).
It's very simple once you get your head around it once. Honest. I'm a regular Joe with no education or training in this stuff and do some pretty cool visualizations in Processing all the time. Arduino was based in part on Processing, I think. That's why Arduino calls the programs "sketches" if I'm not mistaken.
Processing is (either) 2D or 3D digital graph paper. Graph paper you can add sound, animations, whatever to. It's worth a closer look IMO.
I've been working on a set of tools for building user interfaces for microcontrollers, it's called Electric UI. We do free education licenses.
To write a UI with it you use a similar syntax to HTML which might be easier for the high school level.
An IMU will give a fast, tactile, low latency sensor to play with. It's multi-dimensional, you can throw in a lesson about why the gravity vector is a certain constant!