As part of the documentation for student projects from Amy Biegalski’s EF 230 class, students can create an “Instructable.”  Instructables.com is a website for sharing step-by-step instructions for DIY projects. Six student teams were awarded a spot on the site’s featured page.

EF 230 students have two large projects. One is to use an Arduino or Raspberry Pi microcontroller to create a smart train device, which students demonstrate using a model train. The other project is to transform an iRobot Roomba robot into a Mars Rover that uses sensors and data obtained from a live video feed. In both projects, students develop  code in MATLAB.

Links to the instructables of the following winning teams are below:

• View: Model Train Speed Control Arduino, made by Eli Darby, Will Buttrey, and Jason Morrell.
• View: Communicating Data with Arduino, made by Garrett Statum, Dustin Shults, and John Hill. This is an “Internet of Things” device that communicates sensor data over wi-fi to an API.
• View: Self Balancing Robot, made by Ifedayo Akinduro and Ryan Kelly.

“Students are learning both design and programming with the projects,” said Richard Bennett, professor and director of the engage^tm Engineering Fundamentals Program. “I would like to recognize Amy for her vision and creative teaching, Will Schleter for his helping to set up a lot of things so the projects would work, and the students who have really done a great job with the projects. I think this fits in with the design theme we are working on in the TCE.