The students got a crash course in Arduino last Friday as we invited in Alessio from Fab Lab  and Alessandro Masserdotti from the Fablab Opendot. Students were initially thrown back by the number of open technology laid out in front of them, with many of them admitting that they had never done anything like this before.

Alessandro gave an introduction to Arduino, which is an open-source microcontroller, invented in Italy that helps people build electronic projects.

“You never forget your first LED” – Francesco Bombardi

After the initial intro and with a bit of coding and a bit of connecting, the students celebrated the lighting of their First LED. Afterwards, they were introduced to the “breadboard: (whose name comes from the fact that the original invention was an actual wooden breadboard) used to prototype electronics. With the breadboard in hand, Alessandro was able to show them a few examples of sensors and the students were able to connect and test their first light sensitivity sensor. The biggest insight of the day was how accessible technology could be. Often it is hidden behind a shell or a structure, with little interaction between the actual hardware and the user itself. With Arduino, the students started to see all the opportunities that arise when they learn the basics with the support of technologies like Arduino.

By Antonio Starnino, FIP Design Thinking Coach