Ecology practices
As a practical approach to the Introduction to Ecology and Environmental Sciences course, the students are provided with different digital fabrication workshops.
We strongly believe in Fab Academy's hands-on learning philosophy and aim to promote interest in digital fabrication among college students.
2021 - Automatic Irrigation system
Period: Winter Semester 2021 / 22
Lecturer: Jefferson Josué Sandoval Betanco
Sessions
In the context of the global situation, these sessions were made in a hybrid way.
These digital manufacturing practices were composed of three sessions:
Introduction to Arduino
Students get familiar with the basic theory: What is a microcontroller? What is Arduino (both boards and software)? What is the application?
As examples for applications of digital fabrication, different FabAcademy final projects were shown. The final project, which is the Irrigation system, was explained.
We made our first practice with an Arduino board: turning on and off, then blinking the built-in LED in different ways. In-person students were provided with an Arduino UNO board, Online students made it in TinkerCAD.
FabAcademy
Arduino reference: Language, Functions, Variables, and structure
Arduino IDE
Arduino UNO
Introduction to Inputs and Outputs
This session had to be split into two days (first day for digital practice, second day for physical circuits).
Day 1:
For this practical session both in-person and online students were guided to make and simulate circuits and codes in TinkerCAD for:
a. Fading LEDs.
b. Ultrasonic distance sensor and LEDs.
c. DC motor test.
Day 2:
The in-person students were provided with electronics kits to replicate in reality the previous digital practice. An extra practice including a Capacitive soil moisture sensor was carried out. In the end, the students worked on making the circuit and code for the irrigation system.
TinkerCAD
Introduction to 3D model and printing
Both in-person and online students were taught the main 2D and 3D design commands in Fusion 360, as well as the implications of 3D printing including mechanism operation and print parameters using the Ultimaker Cura slicer and the Ultimaker S5 3D printer.
Note: In the beginning, the idea for practice was to make a case for the system; this idea was reevaluated and modified to make keychains because it's easier to ensure and evaluate the activity of each student, also a case is something that can be just downloaded from the internet and we rather them to make something for themselves (or a relative).
3D printed parts are not shared here for privacy but have been, of course, included in a final report and evaluated.
Ultimaker Cura - Slicing software
Ultimaker S5 - 3D printer
Download Fusion 360
Fusion 360 tutorial
Student prototypes
Students were asked to form groups of a maximum of 6 people, including at least 2 who could attend the sessions in person.
Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
Group 6
Group 7