What is different about the Grandpa's Gizmos Course?

If you do a search for Arduino courses, you will see that there are quite a few. While I haven't seen all of them, the ones I have looked at are very good. So why choose Grandpa's Gizmos?

Most of the courses that I looked at were great at teaching how to wire up various sensors, buttons and lights and control them with the Arduino. But often I found myself looking for a deeper dive. I wanted more information on how each sensor works, what are the options for using a part, what is the best library for module, etc.

In making the Grandpa's Gizmos course, I wanted to address some of what I felt was missing:

• At the end of the day, when the wiring is done and software loaded, what is actually being made? Blinking a light is fine, but it seems like there should be more.

• Does the course enable you to make something useful? There are many more Arduino projects than just games and robotic arms.

• Does the course encourage the maker to put their own "spin" on any provided code and give the understanding to do so?

• Can you take it places and have it rugged enough to not fall apart? For most courses the answer was no, unless you built a custom case for every project.

Grandpa's Gizmos course fixes all these problems:

• Every lesson has at least one useful gizmo or game. While demo programs are used to show how to use a part, there is always a complete project for each lesson

• While some games are included with the course, there are many useful tools that you can make. For example, the strobe light can actually be used to measure frequency of a moving object. Heavy emphasis is placed on creating a practical user interface.

• Every software sketch is written with an emphasis on swappable subroutines and a simple main loop. Every sketch starts with documentation and then provides global variables that can be used to customize the sketch according to the user's preferences. By swapping their own subroutines the user can make alterations to the sketch easily.

• Grandpa's Gizmos is the only course that uses the unique World Board System. This is a stackable board system which allows small boards to be quickly unplugged and swapped for another board, enabling rapid re-wiring. Along with a backplate and front plate, the entire assembly is held together with standoffs and screws that result in a rugged, easily usable project that does not require a case. Yes! You heard that right -- the case is an integrated part of the World Board System!

Here are my reactions to a few other courses out there:

• 30 Days Lost In Space -- inventor.io This course is the first course I took so I have a soft spot for these folks. If your emphasis is on fun and storytelling, this is the place to go! They also have great deals for their members. My favorite for when I just want to have some fun. Down side: no case options, so the resulting projects aren't too practical.

• 30-sensor kit -- inventor.io A decent collection of sensors, but they kind of abandoned the storytelling for this one. Very little documentation about each sensor and the sketches were pretty basic. Difficult to tell what sensor does what.

• Pico Bricks -- This kit tries to solve the "rat's nest" wiring problems of an open breadboard by using cables to connect small boards that have one or two items on them. In fact, unless you break off the small boards, they are already connected by PCB traces so you don't even need the cables. I think this skips a lot of the learning opportunities by not requiring the user to do the wiring.

• Official Arduino kit -- a bit pricey, and just has an open breadboard. High learning potential, so that is good. It comes with a 170 page book, so if you prefer this style of book learning this course might be good for you. You do the wiring, which is good.

• Sunfounder -- similar to the Official Arduino kit, just different choice of parts. You do the wiring. Downside for me is that the tutorials are all video. I prefer that video not be the only way of learning, as sometimes you need a long uninterrupted study of a single page of information. For this reason I prefer the lessons be in PDF or book form.

• Elegoo -- Nice economical starter kit, and the lessons are in PDF form. However, you don't get as nice of a display -- no OLED, just a long rectangular LCD. Also this is just an open breadboard system so you will have to make your own cases.