Electronics Description
During class we learned a section on electronics. This included a ton of things like building a circuit, using potentiometers, and resistors. We started off just building basic circuits using a wire, battery, and light bulb, connecting the negatives and positives. Then we started making much more complicated circuits with three light bulbs and so on. Once we finished with the basics, we took on the not so basic, at the start, bread boards. These were much more advanced than what we were used to. With bread boards we had to know which way the current went, and where to put each wire and resistor to make it a complete circuit. Each lesson we learned a new object to be put into the circuit including different resistors, different potentiometers, LED lights, capacitors, etc.
Mini-Concepts
Voltage - An electromotive force or potential difference expressed in volts, Voltage = Current * Resistance
Current - A quantity representing the rate of flow of electric charge, usually measured in Amps, Current = Voltage / Resistance
Resistance - The degree to which a substance or device opposes the passage of an electric current, causing energy dissipation, Resistance = Voltage / Current
Current - A quantity representing the rate of flow of electric charge, usually measured in Amps, Current = Voltage / Resistance
Resistance - The degree to which a substance or device opposes the passage of an electric current, causing energy dissipation, Resistance = Voltage / Current
Programming Description
When I found out we were doing programming, I had no idea what anyone was talking about. Our class took an entire Python code language online class at codecademy.com. The Python language is really complex. There are so many things you can do to make a program. At the beginning of the class, we learned about lists, variables, and operations that make statements True or False. The rest of the course covered so many concepts like dictionaries, for loops, classes, bit-wise operations, and tons of functions. In programming we created a tiny version of battleship, a pig-Latin translator, learned how to calculate how much a trip costs with certain variables, learned how to make shopping list and how to add items to your cart, and numerous other things.
Reflection
The electronics section I felt taught me so many things I will need to know later on and gives me a great start on later courses. Programming might have been my favorite side project. I loved the satisfaction of completing the course and gaining the knowledge of building a code to do something really cool like above. There are so many things to do on programming it is endless. Also I ended up restarting my Python course because I had gone through too quickly, and forgetting each lesson too easily. After I restarted I got back to where I was in no time and completely understood each concept. Both programming and the electronics experiment tie together almost perfectly and I could definitely consider this as a profession in the future. I learned two major things from this: How to make a somewhat complex circuit on a bread board, and I learned how to create a code in Python script. During my electronics experiment I should've referred to my notes instead of getting help as often. Also, I should've payed more attention on the electronics lessons because I had a lot more trouble on this than Programming. I really enjoyed these two projects.