Reflection

This was an interesting project. I wish I had more time to explore it during the course of this mini semester. I really enjoyed how open-ended this project was and how it allowed for more creativity than prior labs - I suppose that's because we are becoming more and more capable students of Arduino/Particle. Initially, I was going to try to create a weather forecast tool and use a neopixel ring to represent different types of weather (sunny, rainy, snowy, etc.), but I struggled to configure the neopixel ring and the servo. I also was curious about how a servo could be used to represent time, so I decided to embark on that project. With this concept in mind, I initially tried to create a clock to represent next meeting time, as per Google Calendar, but I realized that my servo could only go up to 180 degrees, so I rethought how I could use a servo to represent time. I ended up landing on a timer to show countdown for an event. I had to really tinker with the delay function to ensure that my servo was more accurately counting down the time until the event started. I improved my knowledge of IFTTT and webhooks, functions, as well as switches (which I continued to use for this project to turn the counter on and off). I also learned how to use a servo and other motors.