I am unclear what IDE I should use

Development Tools Cloud Chrome App
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I am a teacher in a US public middle school. It is a Title 1 school district, so I am trying to keep the costs as low as possible (frankly, most of the cost is coming out of my own pocket).

This semester I worked in a module, that took about one month, that introduced the students to programming and electronics. This fits very well into the state curriculum and there was a strong buy-in from the students.

That said, I had a lot of trouble with communication between the boards (Arduino Uno) and the school computers. By the end of the semester, the problems were significantly reducing student buy-in. Most of the suggestions for dealing with the problem called for accessing the Device Manager. I am not permitted to access the Device Manager and the IT department is not interested/willing/able to help.

Toward that end, I have been thinking that next semester I will try to use the student Chromebooks instead of the PCs. I have ordered a bunch of USB C to B cables (yes, cheap ones, when I am paying for it I am not getting great ones).

Here I get to the point
I am now trying to understand the Chrom app and the Web app. I downloaded and opened the Arduino Create for Education on chrome. It seems to simply redirect me to app.adruino.cc . Is this correct?

Is there a reason to download the Chrome App over just going directly to the website on the chromebooks?

Looking at the free version, I am a bit unclear, What is a "Thing"?

As I see it, the biggest issue is that the user of the free version is that the user is limited to

Two "Thing"
25 compiles
100mb for sketch storage (more than enough)

So, I should be able to run the class using this Free tier, is that correct?

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Hi @Hasaf.

Yes, I think so. The app has been deprecated after ChromeOS support was added to the Arduino Cloud website, so I think the app was changed to simply open the website in order to facilitate the migration to the new system for the existing app users.

Not that I am aware of.

A "Thing" is an Arduino Cloud IoT sketch that runs on an Arduino board. You can learn about it from this tutorial:

https://docs.arduino.cc/arduino-cloud/cloud-interface/things

If those usage allowances are sufficient, sure!

You might be interested to learn about the features of Arduino Cloud that are specifically designed for educators:

https://docs.arduino.cc/arduino-cloud/education/arduino-cloud-for-education/

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All the IT department needs to do is ensure that the necessary USB-Serial drivers are installed, namely CH340/341, CP2102, FT232RL. That will cover most of the boards you are likely to use. They are there to support your teaching needs so.....

Can't believe that the school cannot afford a few $5 USB cables. Of course cheap cables are easily damaged especially when roughly handled by kids, so its likely that at least some problems were down to that. Best to have a few spares, but having to pay for them out of your own pocket seems ridiculous.

If you can access PowrShell, then you could run the following command to list the USB devices:

Get-PnpDevice -PresentOnly | Where-Object { $_.InstanceId -match '^USB' }

There is also a utility called USBDeview:

Not sure whether it requires Administrator privileges though or whether it works with the privileges of an ordinary user.

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How about the original Arduinos? How about boards with native USB?

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That's a fair point, but I suspect that in the context of a very tight budget they will likely be clones with CH340. Still, I did miss the the 16u2 driver which seems available only via Windows update I think. I ought to amend that to say have the IT Department pre-install the drivers for the boards that have been purchased.

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Thanks, I am going to give it a try once the cables arrive. As far as the cost, remember to multiply everything by 35.

You guys did make me curious. I added up all of the invoices. So far this class has cost me a bit over $600. I hope to be able to use all the stuff for several years, but that is still $600 out of my pocket.

As far as support from the IT department, even though the state makes it clear that they want more than apps, the IT department thinks that apps are all we need to teach. As such, they will not support anything beyond Google Apps.

The Arduino IDE was installed before the "Google Apps" dictate. However, it will not be updated and there will be no support for it. This is why I have to find a different way. I could go on about the IT department, but this is just the reality that I have to work with.

1 Like
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The 'app' is the arduino IDE, They have nothing to do with support for it, that is done here on the forum and through official Arduino channels.
If you have USB ports, create what is known as a portable installation. I have no need but I think it is documented on the same page you get the regular apps from.

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