Bruce Emerson:

Seems only fair to take a moment and introduce myself. No doubt this is partly self protection since you may foolishly think that I have tremendous authority and experience with Arduinos. What I actually have is 20+ years of experience teaching physics, engineering, and electronics for COCC. A few years ago I was introduced to the maker movement through Dave Casey (Familab) and Mitch Altman (Noisebridge). Since then I slowly become more and more involved with this movement including the three makerspaces in Central Oregon. The Arduino is a platform that is one of the lynchpins of the electronics tribe in the maker movement. Over the last year or so I have created a little time to get to know both the Arduino and Raspberry Pi platforms and am massively excited to grow my skills with these devices. Not exactly what you would expect for a tremendous authority on anything:)

Not surprisingly one of the best ways to build my own skills is to attempt to communicate what I think I understand to others who also wish to learn. As I work towards creating a family focused makerspace in Redmond teaching short courses like this one through COCC's community education program is a way to provide access to these exciting tools of the modern world.

Thanks, in advance, for your patience and your curousity. As I outlined in the outcomes for this course my primary goal for this course is to get you started into this world of microcontrollers with the skills and understanding to teach yourself additional skills as you need them.