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FAQ

What is this project?#

To help support, IDeATe’s ‘Intro to Physical Computing’ and ‘Intro to Arduino’, we’ve created a series of maker cards. These are designed to help support students in remote learning becoming more familiar with electronic parts, finding technical documentation to use components and learning about electronic symbols.

Can I get a copy of the cards?#

We’ll provide students enrolled in the course with a physical deck of cards. In the meantime, there’s a digital copy of the cards that you can print at home and use just the same.

How do the cards work?#

Each card has a lot of information. The front of the card contains the part name, an image of the card, an a category. You’l notice that the categories are color coded. For example red indicates a component relating to power, while green indicates an input. The card also contains a short description for each component and a quick link to digital documentation for the component. On the reverse, you’ll find a QR code to quickly access the content, the category, part name and a schematic diagram. This is the electronic symbol for this component that you might find in circuit diagrams.

What is the digital documentation?#

By visiting the short code or scanning the QR code, you’ll be quickly linked to an online knowledgebase. Each part has a detailed description, starter code you can use in your projects, links to additional online guides and tutorials. It also works as a wiki: if you’d like to edit the pages or contribute to them, you can help make this resource better for everyone!

How do I contribute to the digital documentation?#

The digital documentation is hosted in a GitHub repository. So first you’ll need to have an account setup and a little familiarity with the Github workflow. The files are written in Markdown which is a really easy and approachable way to style documents for the web. Github offers a short course to learn markdown too. Then, just request access from Robert Zacharias by email, and you’ll be able to add to, extend and update the course resources.