Inuboard
a simple sensor for schools that doesn't require any drivers or extensions.
Summary
Our new sensor board named 'Inuboard' uses audio interfaces. It connects to microphone and headphone jack of PC. There is no need to install any drivers and extensions.
The input is wired to the built-in light sensor. You can change it to any other sensors. The output is able to attach LED, motor, or other actuators.
Scratch can sense the input by 'loudness' block, and control the output by 'change volume' and 'play' block.
Description
Sensing and controlling things in the physical world is important to understand the nature. PicoBoard or WeDo is a typical equipment for that activity for Scratch. However, these require device driver and extension, and it is difficult for some schools install them by management policy.
Our new sensor board named 'Inuboard' uses audio interfaces instead of USB or other interfaces. It connects to microphone and headphone jack of PC with ordinary 3.5 mm audio cables. There is no need to install any drivers and extensions.
Inuboard has one input and one output socket. The input is wired to the built-in light sensor as default. Of course you can change it to any other sensors. The output is able to attach LED, motor, or other actuators.
Scratch can sense the input value by 'loudness' block in 'sensing', and control the output value by 'change volume' and 'play' block of 'sound'. It is a simple way connecting Scratch to the real world. We don't need to learn the usage of special blocks. This board can be worked with Scratch 1.4, 2.0, and 3.0, or any software it can handle sounds.
The basic idea of Inuboard came from World-Stethoscope developed by Kazuhiro Abe and Tetsuya Hayashi in 2003. Inuboard is designed by Kazunori Soumura and the circuit diagram is licensed under CC BY-SA4.0.
http://www.nhk.or.jp/sougou/programming/shiryou/2016_013_04_shiryou.html
Inuboard is used for the Japanese educational TV program named 'Why!? Programming'. And some Japanese schools introduced Inuboard.
http://www.nhk.or.jp/sougou/programming/?das_id=D0005180314_00000
We demonstrate what can be done with this board and explain the mechanism of the system. The audience will find a way to apply it to their project and how to get (or make) their own board.