Teaching math with the Arduino

Community Education
1

Dear Arudino teachers---

We are working on some web and software technology that allows us to integrate the Arduino into
our math lessons. To this end, we've developed some software that allows
a web browser to control an Arudino.

I wonder if any of you would be willing to test out our software? Our Arduino/math lessons are here.

The link under the "Use an Arduino" section will direct you to some code to be uploaded
to your Arduino and some software to be run on your Mac/Win to connect http with the serial
port on your computer. Once done, our web-based math lessons can interact with simple
electronics on the Arduino end.

We'd certainly appreciate any feedback/suggestions/etc.

Thank you,
Tom B.

2

I am not sure why, but FIRST program from your web site I tried has a typo in TWO lines of code.
Not impressed to do any more "testing".

Suggestion: QA

3

What's the typo?

4

analogread should be analogRead

Do you teach program "debugging" skills?
That seems to be majority of "problems" in coding.

I like your setup, but it seems to be just - "fill in blanks and see what it does" - approach.

And I did not see much of "math" teaching, but I did not look very hard.

IMHO googling or posting "help, it does not work" in forums is not a debugging skill.
Good luck.

5

Hello physteacher,

I would be interested in testing your code... I compiled it for an UNO. Uploaded.

Please tell more about using the Serial Monitor to talk to your code.

I tried 9600 baud, but got no response to "hello" or other commands.

What line ending do you expect??

6

Yes, the terminal character for commands sent to our software is the newline (\n). I don't think it's possible to send a newline from the Arduino serial monitor. You likely have to use a serial/modem program like zterm (osx) or hyperterminal (windows).

7

analogread (all lowercase) is not a typo..the camelBack command form was driving my beginning students crazy, so we went with all lowercase.

Vaclav:
analogread should be analogRead

Do you teach program "debugging" skills?
That seems to be majority of "problems" in coding.

I like your setup, but it seems to be just - "fill in blanks and see what it does" - approach.

And I did not see much of "math" teaching, but I did not look very hard.

IMHO googling or posting "help, it does not work" in forums is not a debugging skill.
Good luck.