Purpose:

The primary purpose of this lab is to do a little practice with writing about science and technology and to verify that you know how to find and submit a lab report with appropriate formatting to your instructor.

An outcome for the labs overall is to help us explore how science is communicated with the written word. While technology has changed our world (and will continue to do so) the written word is still the most used method used to transmit ideas and information. In this lab activity we will take a moment to explore expectations about writing that you do in future labs and other technical communications.

The Pre-Term Prep Lab

In the pre-Term Prep lab you (hopefully) downloaded and installed the Arduino IDE software that we will use to program and control the Qbot.

Download and Install the Arduino IDE:

To talk to our robot car and control it we will be using the open source software known as the Arduino IDE. This is a software package that you can use to program all Arduino based robots of which there are many. When you have some time before the start of next term please go to the Arduino software download page and install the Arduino IDE (currently version 1.8.12) on your machine. I appreciate that you could use the web based editor and that's fine but my instructional materials will be predicated on you having the IDE installed on your machine. The install has been straight forward and consistent on the various machines I have used (just follow the directions) though I don't know that it will run on a Chromebook. If you have a Chromebook your best solution is the web application from the reading I have done.

Writing instructions for a step by step process is a common task for all folks in this world whether we're tech writers or working in retail. While it sounds simple the process of describing what you are doing in words (rather than showing someone) is challenging.

A Model:

Take a look at this battery replacement guide for a Galaxy S6 phone. iFixit is a remarkable place for crowd sourced guides to fix various objects from computers to washing machines. A local connection is that iFixit was started by a Mountain View HS graduate while he was in college in SLO. Scan through the guide and think about the care with which each step is articulated and the formatting that distinguishes between instructions and cautions for the repair worker. I trust you noticed that at the top of the guide it indicates all the tools you need as well as parts (and, of course, will sell them to you - prices are quite reasonable in case you're wondering). Search for the battery replacement guide for your phone. Does it exist? What is the difficulty rating? Would you try it?

Because most of these repair guides are crowd sourced iFixit has taken the time to develop technical writing standards for their site. You can access iFixit's Education site here. File this away for future reference if you ever take WR 227 Tech Writing.

Procedure:

Procedure seems like a bit of an oversell for what we are going to do here. I would like you to go back through your experience downloading and installing the Arduino IDE and write a 'repair guide' for doing so. Step by step with clear instructions and cautions. You may use any word processing tool you are comfortable with so long as your final product that you submit is either a .doc file (not .docx) or a .pdf. This gives the work that we do maximum portability.

• Begin your Installation Guide but giving your name, the date, and the course name at the top of your guide is some clear way. I don't particularly care whether it's on the left or the right or in the center. I just want it to be easy for me to identify whose work I'm looking at and which activity this is about.
• Give your Installation Guide a name and begin. You may make your installation guide as detailed as seems reasonable to you. 'Install the Arduino IDE from this web page' will not be considered detailed enough. If you are prone to lots of detail you may stop after two pages of instructions assuming reasonable font size and image sizes.
• For at least two of your instructions I want to see an image associated with the instruction. One image needs to be a screen shot and another a camera image that you embed in your document. My purpose is asking this is to make sure that you can share with me images of code (screen shots) or objects (camera images) that you may be asked to provide in future labs.
• For at least one of your instructions I want to see how you express some caution or warning about the process based on your experience installing the IDE. I am sure that everyone at least paused for a moment somewhere in the process to think about which way to do something. It might be remembering how to determine which operating system your computer uses. It might be remembering to take the install file out of the download folder before running the installer. I just want to see you distinguish your cautionary statement from your directions in some clear way.
• Finally - save the file (which of course you've been doing along the way so you don't lose all that effort) with a unique name and submit it to the Bb link (probably in Week 1). Some students just keep rewriting their lab documents in the same file which makes past labs disappear. You would never do that......

 

LAB DELIVERABLES: (Turn in on Bb)

I) Turn in your guide to installing the Arduino IDE that is formatted and documented as described in the procedure. That's it for this lab.