WEEK 3

Lab: Tone Output Using An Arduino

The first thing I learned while doing this lab was how to solder, in order to connect the speaker to the wires. I was confused by the diagram at first and didn’t understand how the resistor was connected to the ground wire. I ended up just connecting them to the same track, and it worked. At first I thought I hadn’t put it together correctly because I couldn’t hear anything, but it turns out the speaker is just very quiet — also I did this on the 4th floor near the shop and there was a lot of background noise. But - when I put my ear to the speaker I could hear it. I removed the resistor entirely which also helped with the volume. It was cool to play around with it and move my hand around the board to see how that affected the sound.

I was again frustrated when I used the transistor, because I heard no sound. After some troubleshooting I realized I was using the wrong transistor.

My first attempt at soldering:
 

After putting the transistor in correctly, the speaker was much louder, and I was able to change the sound by moving my hand over the photoresistor. I also tried using my phone’s flashlight, which resulted in a very loud sound. 



I began the motor lab, but was unsuccessful in getting the rotary to spin. It moved and