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Kits Ready to Go Further

Run the Kits Ready to Go Further MicroSim fullscreen

About This MicroSim

Two kits for students who have finished what the standard set offers, and the point of the panel is that you can run either one without being able to explain the theory underneath.

The signal processing kit turns live sound into a moving frequency display, many times a second. It builds directly on the microphone and sound spectrum kits, and the transform doing the work is a Fast Fourier Transform — which is worth naming and not worth explaining to a twelve-year-old. What a mentor needs to know is what it looks like when it is working: bars that move with sound, low frequencies on one side, high on the other. A student who whistles and watches the peak move has understood the useful part.

The smartwatch and wearable display kit is the same display idea moved onto hardware that gets worn, and the two constraints that changes are worth calling out because they are new to students:

Battery draw suddenly matters. A stationary kit runs off USB and nobody thinks about power. A wearable runs a few hours or a few days depending on choices the student makes, and that is a genuinely different design problem.

Connections must survive movement. A breadboard is fine on a desk and useless on a wrist. Soldered or properly connectorised joints stop being fussiness and start being the difference between a project that works and one that works while you hold it still.

Both kits are step-ups rather than replacements — they assume the Chapter 20 kits have already been built.

How to Use

  • Click each kit for what it does and which earlier kit it extends.
  • Note what the description does not do: explain the transform. That is deliberate.
  • Try Quiz Me to check you can say what a mentor would see running.

Lesson Plan

Bloom level: Remember (L1) -- identify

Learning objective: Given a signal-processing kit or a smartwatch display kit running, the learner identifies what it does and what a mentor would see, without explaining the underlying transform.

Before (5 min). Ask whether a mentor needs to understand Fourier analysis to run a spectrum kit. The answer is no, and saying so out loud removes the main reason mentors avoid these kits.

With the poster (10 min). Read both. Then practise the sentence you would say to a student: "it splits the sound into pitches and draws how loud each one is" is enough and it is true.

After (a session). Run the signal processing kit and have students whistle at it. The moving peak is the demonstration; no explanation needed.

Check for understanding. Ask: "What is the first thing that goes wrong when you move a working breadboard project onto a wrist?" The connections — a breadboard depends on friction and staying still, and neither survives being worn.

Embedding This MicroSim

Paste this into any page of the book, adjusting the relative path to docs/sims/ for the page's depth:

<iframe src="../../sims/kits-ready-to-go-further/main.html" width="100%" height="660" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Specification

The full specification below is extracted from Chapter 21: Managing Your Kit Inventory and Signal Processing Kits.

Type: infographic-overlay (grid)
**sim-id:** kits-ready-to-go-further<br/>
**Library:** Interactive Infographic Overlay (grid-diagram.js, annotation-free comparison poster + rectangular hover zones)<br/>
**Status:** Specified

Purpose: Let a mentor compare a signal-processing kit and a smartwatch/wearable display kit side by side, so "what does this kit actually do" gets a one-glance answer without any signal-processing math.

Bloom Taxonomy: Remember (L1)
Bloom Taxonomy Verb: identify

Learning objective: Given a signal-processing kit or a smartwatch display kit running, the learner identifies what it does and what a mentor would see, without explaining the underlying transform.

Image style: Flat comparison poster, two vertical columns, each with a bold printed column header baked into the image ("Signal Processing Kit," "Smartwatch / Wearable Display Kit") since grid overlays hide chip labels by default

Image dimensions: 1200x700 (landscape)

Zones (2 columns, each with id, label, color, approximate x1/y1/x2/y2 percentage boundaries, one-line summary, and 3-5 bullet facts):
1. `signal-processing-kit` -- color #4A90D9 -- boundaries approximately x1:3,y1:10,x2:48,y2:92 -- Summary: "Turns raw sound into a live, moving frequency display -- no math required to run it." Facts: builds on the microphone and sound spectrum kits from Chapter 20; updates its display many times per second (real-time audio processing); uses a technique called the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) behind the scenes; the math itself is covered in the companion Signal Processing on a $5 MicroController textbook, not here
2. `smartwatch-display-kit` -- color #F5A623 -- boundaries approximately x1:52,y1:10,x2:97,y2:92 -- Summary: "A display kit built to be worn, not set on a desk." Facts: extends the Chapter 20 display kit idea onto wrist-wearable hardware; battery power draw matters far more than on a stationary kit; connections must survive real movement, not just sit on a breadboard; the companion Clocks and Watches textbook covers an extensive set of wearable projects

showLabels: false (column titles are printed in the generated image)

Interactive features: Click or hover either column to highlight its hover zone and reveal its full fact list in a detail panel; explore mode only.

Implementation: Interactive Infographic Overlay Guide (grid engine) -- `grid-diagram.js` + `grid-overlay.css` render the two rectangular hover zones over the generated poster image; `data.json` holds the 2 zones per the overlay-grid-data-json-schema.

References