ASEE 2017 National Competition Results
The ASEE 2017 national competition was held in Columbus Ohio this year. The theme was Christopher Columbus’ travels through the Spanish islands. The goal was to build an autonomous robot …
ASEE TYESA State Competition 2017
ASEE TYESA State Competition 2017 The host of the competition rotates among a number of colleges each year. This year the New York TYESA State Competition 2017 was held at Monroe …
How to Program Arduino Without Delays
Motivation (The Problem) You’re programming an Arduino based microcontroller and you’ve got a few things going on. Say you have an autonomous robot that drives by line follow, it senses …
Sharp Distance Sensors and Eliminating Noise
Sharp Distance Sensors Sharp distance sensors (or Sharp range detection sensors) are great for detecting a range of distances. Analog versions in particular can provide you with accurate range measurements within …
What is Variable Scope?
Variable Scope Variable scope relates to visibility, the larger the scope, the more portions of a program that will have visibility of that variable. In general you want to limit …
Variable Data Types for Arduino/C++
Data Types in Arduino/C++ You’ll find yourself likely using the same three or four data types in most of your programs but it’s important to at least be aware of …
Popular Variable Naming Conventions
Naming Conventions Looking through various programmers’ code you may notice variables with different styles, I’m referring more to the use of lower and uppercase rather than how variable names are …
What is a Variable?
Back to Basics Simply put, a variable is a representation of a value that can change. One of the most important elements of software is a variable. Anyone familiar with …
What is a bit, nibble or Byte?
First, Back to Basics To understand bits, nibbles and bytes we have to revisit the idea of number systems. Remember in elementary school when you had to break numbers into …
Quality of Off-Brand Arduino Uno Boards
With Arduino Uno R3 currently at $24.95 it’s hard not to wonder if those $10 off brands are worth a try. A few years ago I bought a SparkFun RedBoard …