Dongni's Journal

While I was just finishing my microswitches I had in mind a problem, which had not been solved yet. I had no speaker to make my electronic keyboard work. Naturally, as I usually do when I have a problem I have no solution to I go to Mr. Shappel and ask him if he has any speakers laying around the I can use. Funnily enough, when I asked him he gave me an old stereo that was broken and he told me to take out the speakers from the stereo and use them for my project. The stereo was old and dusty so I had to take off a lot of dust before I could start cutting any wires. Eventually, I took out all of the speakers that the stereo had and I threw away the rest. Now my next problem was getting new wires that would connect from the speakers to the breadboard because the wires the speaker originally came with weren't suitable for connecting them to the breadboard. I discarded the wires that the speaker originally had and instead I got some new wires that I could connect to the breadboard an...

Soldering my own microswitches was an experience that I would never forget and that now lead to my next task, organizing them in a way that would resemble that of a piano and insuring that they don't move from that organized position. Originally I had the idea that I would put the microswitches onto a wooden platform that I would make to that the microswitches would look like they're on a miniature piano and so that the guts of the Arduino and all the wiring would be hidden. I thought this would be the best solution because it not only maintained the microswitches organized but made my project look cleaner and more professional. However, as I sat down with Mr. Shappel and spoke to him about this idea he proposed that instead, I should simply connect the microswitches with a wire that I would cut off from a coat hanger. It was much more simple and realistic than my idea because my original idea would lead me to learn how to use new tools and would require a lot of time that I di...

After deciding that I would use microswitches in my project I encountered an immediate problem that wouldn't let me use them without altering them. They didn't have any wire that would allow me to connect them to the breadboard or the Arduino. This forced me to ask Mr. Shappell how it would be possible for me to connect the microswitches if they didn't have wires. Without a pause, he already had the answer, which was soldering. Another student of his was also using microswitches on a similar project and so Mr. Shappell prescribed the same solution to me as he did to his other student. The great solution soldering was something I had never done before since I never owned a soldering iron, but that didn't squeeze the excitement I had to learn how to solder. Now of course because soldering can be quite dangerous if done by an inexperienced person Mr. Shappel went first and demonstrated how to solder the wires onto the microswitch. He started out by first 'cleaning...

Until recently I have simply been working on small projects that would help me get acquainted with Arduino, however, I didn't have a purpose outside of that for doing these projects. All of these projects I've done from debouncing to learning how potentiometers work have been very interesting and have truly taught me a lot about the world of electronics works. After a talk that Mr. Shappell gave to the entire class I realized how much a lot of what he said applied to me. He talked about how important it is for us to have a mission that we are attempting to achieve and that we need to get out of the cycle of experiential learning and begin to move in a certain direction. This lead me to choosing my final product and a mission that would maintain me interested in working with Arduino. Electing an actual final product took me a bit of time because I needed to find a product that would not only interest me but would also be feasible with the time and resources that I had availabl...

After learning about debouncing on Arduino the next tutorial the Arduino Youtube series had was about potentiometers. Potentiometers are these resistor knobs that are used to control the amount of voltage that goes through the circuit. You can either let not current pass through the potentiometer, let all the current pass through the potentiometer, or let anything in between those two values. For example if you have voltage of 5 that is flowing through a circuit and the potentiometer is closed half way then only half of that voltage will make through to the end of the circuit, the rest is released as heat. This is how we can control the volume of speakers and many other devices we use everyday. In order to help me visualize this simple yet confusing concept Mr. Shappell helped me by giving me an image of a pipe and letting water flow through it. The wider the pipe of water is the more water can flow through it at once, and the thinner the pipe is the less water can flow through at onc...

The most important breakthrough I had throughout all this time was finally choosing where I wanted to focus my attention. I was split between choosing an Arduino project to complete or creating my own application. After a lot of thinking and consulting with Mr. Shappel I was able to make my decision, which ended up being an Arduino project. Now I am in the process of learning how to code an Arduino. This has lead me to multiple different sources that all teach beginners how to make an Arduino. The most helpful, in my opinion out of all of the sources is this Youtube series by Programming Electronics Academy. In the videos he explains everything from the very beginning and in a clear and simple format. In fact, the youtube videos are so beginner friendly that in the first video he simply goes over what the Arduino is, what it is composed of, and what it's potentially capable of. This helped me better understand what (the Arduino) I was working with and made me more comfortable with ...

              Hello, my name is Dongni Alcantara and I am an 11th Grader here at WBAIS. Before I came here to WBAIS I used to live in Jerusalem, so I didn't live far from here. I lived in Jerusalem for 4 years and went to two different school in this time span. The two school were JAIS (the sister school of WBAIS) and the Anglican International School of Jerusalem. In my previous school (Anglican) we weren't required to bring our own laptops to school however, we were encouraged to do so and many of my fellow students did so. Since it wasn't mandatory to have laptops they did have a computer lab where many students did their digital work. I've previously taken a class called digital design where we learn to create different digital products for a chosen audience. For example I made a magazine with a group a friends that was targeted at people who were interested in current events and news in areas like sports, politics, etc.       ...