Invention stimulator online

Invention Stimulator Minimum Teaching – Maximum Learning Many teachers are worried about teaching ICT - not anymore! It’s not Rocket Science But It might make a Rocket Scientist Micro Computer Unit (MCU) programming for people who don’t do programming!

Can you write programmes for a computer? Or would you like to just get on and INVENT SOMETHING NEW?

Now YOU can do both! No need to learn ‘144412 A 000.0’ Try ‘Beep’ or ‘Flash Light’ It’s so much easier and so much more fun! And, in no time at all, You’ll be an inventor and see your inventions work before your eyes!

What is an MCU? It’s a small computer with its own memory and processor - Just like your brain! You get to tell it what to do...... And they’re in loads of things that you see everyday.

Here’s the science bit..... Sound output On-Off Switch General input Output 0 Battery input And here’s the MCU Output 1 USB Cable input Onboard LED General output Run Program Switch 2

So, what can I do with it? By using simple instructions on your p.c. screen, you can invent all kinds of things Your MCU can talk to different sensors and can turn on lights , fans and sounds A sensor can detect different types of things such as light, heat and movement With a little imagination, the fans and lights can be anything you want them to be Remember, an MCU can control anything, from a light to a jumbo jet!

So, what can I do with it? Your kit contains the following sensors, which you attach to the SENSOR input on your MCU card and Output devices, that attach to the Motor and Output sockets Orientation (which way up) Heat Light Bi-directional LED Fan Infrared

Let’s Invent! Here’s an example: An elderly lady lives on her own and sometimes forgets to turn off the oven This wastes electricity or gas and could be dangerous You can tell your MCU to check the temperature of the oven at bedtime, using the heat sensor If the sensor detects that the oven is hot, it can set off an alarm This is an invention! What will you invent?

Let’s tell the MCU to do something A red light flashes in a smoke alarm to show it’s working. It’s an MCU that’s telling it to flash! Here’s how.....

Here’s the way to talk to the MCU It’s very easy to use Here’s where the MCU starts to work And here’s where it stops And you just drag instructions from here And drop them here

Let’s make the light come on Not hard – was it?

Let’s learn about LOOPS A loop is like a big circle which you run around as many times as you want LOOP And run this way Pick up a sweet Start here End here If you want more than 2 sweets just run around the loop again And keep running Keep running This is how we tell the MCU to do things more than once Pick up another sweet

Let’s learn about LOOPS MCU - LOOP And run this way Turn on the light Start here End here Run around once and the light flashes once Keep running And keep running Run around ten times and the light flashes 10 times! Turn off the light

And here’s how we tell the MCU to loop It’s so easy! Set how many times the loop should run

Back to the flashing light…. Start Loop - ten times Turn light on (LED=Light emitting diode) Wait for half a second with the light on Turn light off Wait for half a second with the light off End the loop and go back to the beginning Stop altogether when the loop has run ten times Change the timings here

Finally, we have to tell the MCU where the loop starts and ends We do this with the ‘Draw Line’ instruction Click ‘Draw Line’ and then click on the start and end of the loop And that’s it!

Send the instructions to the MCU Attach USB cable (supplied) between the computer and MCU card And click ‘Download’

Send the instructions to the MCU The computer changes your instructions into MCU language Can you believe that you wrote this?! Click ‘Download’ to send the instructions

Let’s see if it works Disconnect the USB cable and connect a 9 volt battery Now you’re ready! Push the start button You’ve done it!

Inputs and Outputs An ‘Input’ is an event that a sensor tells the MCU about. For example, the heat sensor tells the MCU that it has detected heat. An ‘Output’ is how the MCU instructs a device to do something. For example, turn on the fan. We instruct the MCU to look for Inputs through the Sensor command And we instruct the MCU to control devices using the Moto Forward, Moto Backward and Output commands

Let’s Invent! We’ll tell the MCU to use a light sensor to see if it’s light or dark. If it’s dark, the MCU will turn on a light. First, push a light into ‘MOTOR0’ And then the Light Sensor into ‘SENSOR0’ at the negative (‘-’) end

Let’s Invent! This time, we want the loop to run for ever, so, it’s an ‘Unlimited Loop’ Next, tell the MCU to check the sensor with the ‘Sensor0’ command If the sensor is Off (not sensing darkness) then Stop the Motor (if it’s on) and Jump back to the start of the Loop If the sensor is on (is sensing that it’s dark), then turn on the Motor End the loop and go back to the beginning

Moto Forward and Backward This light is called a ‘Bi-directional LED’ It sounds complicated, but it’s easy to understand It just means that if the electric current goes into the light from one direction, it lights up Green and from the other direction it lights up Red If you use the ‘Moto Forward’ command it will light up Red and the ‘Moto Backward’ command will light up Green

Send the instructions to the MCU Make sure that you’ve used the Draw Line command to join the loops Note that the Jump command can be used instead of Loop End And Download the instructions to the MCU Here’s the MCU language!

Let’s see if it works Hold your hand over the light sensor And the Green Light Comes On! You’ve done it! What will you invent next?

SUBs When you want to send the MCU lots of instructions, the computer screen gets a bit full and looks complicated A ‘Sub’ is a programme within a programme, which can be added to the command line using a single instruction We use the New Sub command from the top menu

SUBs Click on ‘New Sub’ And give the Sub a name Click ‘OK’ A red programme line appears And you drag and drop commands here as normal

SUBs Drag and drop commands to tell the onboard LED to flash 10 times Note that you can drag the command Icons anywhere on the screen Draw the line to connect the loop Double click the Sub command And it will shrink the Sub to a single command icon

SUBs Drag and drop the Sub icon Choose the Sub from the drop down list And that’s it! If you download this to the MCU, the LED will flash 10 times, with a single ‘Sub’ command You can have as many ‘Subs’ as you want

Standard Commands All Commands are simple to understand ‘Delay 1 Second’ is a pre-determined delay ‘Delay’ is user definable ‘Output on’ and ‘Output off’ control the Output 1 connector ‘Music 1’, ‘Music 2’ and ‘Music 3’ play pre-determined music Tone is user definable and can play any music that the user requires

Tone and Music The tone command tells the MCU to play single tones, or a string of tones Tones are chosen in Bass, Mediant or Alto, with 7 notes available for each and 6 tone lengths Think ‘Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti’ for each of the 7 notes DO RE MI SO FA LA TI This will play a musical scale, with each note lasting one second

Let’s Invent! In schools, the ringing of the lesson bell is often automatic But although the bell might be automatic, the classroom lights and ventilation systems are not We can tell the MCU to: ,[object Object]

Turn on the lights and air conditioning at the start of class

Turn off the lights and air-conditioning at the end of classThis will save money and help the environment

Let’s Invent! This sub will: ,[object Object]

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