This project is not something that I am particularly interested in. Also, I don’t find this a practical tool to implement in a school setting when so many students struggle with basic skills, such as reading and writing.

I do recognize the possibilities of something like this to inspire or provide students with the self-esteem to accomplish something they have never thought they could do.

In the beginning as I attempted to learn how to use the Arduino chip, I was quite discouraged. The book available was written by the programmers and was more about the ideology of hacking and learning through play. I had trouble finding well scaffolded instructions to help me learn the basics of programing and how the programming language interacted with the chip itself. I then came to this web site Ladyada.net.

These tutorial gave well scaffolded instructions for a light project that explained components and programing language for a novice. I soon understood the programing language and was able to adapt and write my own program for lights. I programed long and short pulses of light to spell out words in Morse Code. Here is the simple construction of the chip and a quick clip of my project. Can you figure out my message?

http://youtu.be/kK98JGCW4aI