PATHS-UP Digital Scholars Young Scholars 2022: PATHS-UP Young Scholars- 2nd Week Overview- Ava Abraham

The 2nd week at the PATHS-UP Young Scholars program has just ended and it has been very fascinating! We completed several activities including creating schematics, adding GPS trackers, working with Arduino Boards, learning about Microbits and taking an amazing tour.

One of our mentors helped guide us into finishing our PCB and schematic design online. It was very nice to see the final product because we were able to view the PCB in a 3-D perspective. Another exciting project we worked on this week was the GPS tracking on our watches. GPS gets its information from satellites and we learned more about GPS as we were attaching the tracker to our watch. One difficulty we ran into was trying to find a good signal for the watch as Rice University has tall buildings and big trees. However, our mentors continued to encourage us, so we did not give up. Instead, we walked over to an open soccer field where there were no buildings or trees present. In just a few minutes, the watch was able to detect a signal and the coordinates of my location began to appear on the watch screen. Additionally, the watch could tell me which direction I was heading in which was an amusing bonus feature. Also, I continued to work with Arduino Boards by creating an unique project! I created a temperature sensor which I had a lot of fun with because I was able to utilize an LCD display. By placing an object near the temperature sensor, it is able to detect the object's temperature and the temperature is displayed on the LCD display in Celsius and Fahrenheit. One difficulty I faced was trying to see the text on the screen. However, I overcame the problem by turning the blue knob in the right direction on the Arduino Board which increased the brightness. Through this project, I learned more about programing and how every component must be in the right position in order for the whole project to function correctly. One new topic we learned this week was Microbits. We used block programming to create various games such as "Rock, Paper and Scissors" and "Red Light, Green Light!" It was interesting to see how quickly the code transferred from the computer to the tiny Microbit in a matter of seconds. Finally, we took a tour at the Cleanroom which was an eye-opening experience. In the Cleanroom tour, we learned more about nanofabrication and different machines that individuals use daily. It was also captivating to understand how clean the Cleanroom is compared to other places in the city of Houston. I enjoyed the tour because it opened my eyes to the field of research and the endless opportunities that Rice University provides.

Overall, I learned this week that programming a project is not going to be perfect in one try. However, with the help of my mentors and peers, they were able to assist me in finding mistakes and I fixed them accordingly. By working together, it was easy to go back and make necessary revisions in order for the program to work efficiently.

In the final week, I am looking forward to learning more about Arduino Boards and Microbits as well as learning new topics such as artificial intelligence. I am also excited to add the final touches to our digital watch and combine all the different components together!