Date/Time
Date(s) - Saturday, February 27, 2016
9:00 AM - 4:45 PM
Location
Anne Arundel County Public Library - Severna Park Branch
45 W. McKinsey Rd.
Severna Park, MD 21146
Categories
On Saturday, February 27, 2016, Kurt Thompson (former Chesapeake Division Superintendent) will be hosting a 3 to 4-hour hands-on clinic on Arduino programming and model railroading applications. The clinic will cover the basics of programming an Arduino microprocessor and connecting it to a couple of rapid prototyping circuits.
When you leave the clinic, you will have programmed a couple of sketches (Arduino speak for program) and have tested them. We’ll talk about various input and output devices and how to interface them with the Arduino. Some of these will include 5V relays to operate Tortoise switch machines and other devices. You will also leave with your own Arduino Uno.
You won’t go away able to program an entire model railroad, but we’ll discuss various options and ideas. As Kurt said in his previous presentation, Arduinos are here to be the little men of the railroad handling simple and repetitive tasks (like manning your towers).
Before you come to the clinic, you’ll want to go to the Arduino website and download the latest Arduino IDE (1.6.5 is the one I have downloaded). The website is www.arduino.cc. You will need to bring along your laptop to the clinic as well. Also bring along your ideas, questions, and thoughts, and we’ll look over various projects.
The cost for the clinic is $10.00/person to cover the cost of the Arduino Uno and the prototyping board and gizmos. We are accepting participation fees through the end of January. Early sign up is appreciated. Since we have the large conference room, we can host up to about 40 members. Please sign up early so we can get the necessary number of Arduinos ordered and delivered.
The clinic will be held at the Severna Park branch of the Anne Arundel County Public Library. The doors open at 9 AM and we’ll get started about 9:30 once everyone is set up and powered up. The library does have Wi-Fi if we need to download anything from the website or the Internet.
We have the room until 4:45 PM so around 12 or so we’ll break for lunch and head over to one of the local restaurants for lunch. In the past, several of us enjoyed Squisto’s for pasta and salads.
Please contact Kurt Thompson (kurtrain@verizon.net) or Tom Casey (pastsuper.chesdivmernmra@gmail.com) to register.
