I spent a couple of days during the break playing around with my Arduino kit and working through the activities on Ben and Steven's google doc. While this was a new experience for me having never used one before, I was surprised at how easily I was able to follow the tutorials. My favourite activity was the one that involved making the LED dim or brighten in response to surrounding light levels - so cool! I got carried away trying to add controls to the circuit and I managed to implement a little on and off button as well. I found it really satisfying getting my code to communicate with the Arduino kit and do what I wanted. It's really opened my eyes to the endless possibilities that these kits are capable of. Subsequently, I started thinking about the the sort of things I need my project to be able to do.

My part of the group project focuses on how the robot audibly communicates with the user using stereo and devices with speakers such as a TV. I found this post about how to send remote signals to the TV using infrared light... https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-control-your-TV-with-an-Arduino/

The code doesn't look too complicated at all. The only missing piece is an infrared LED which can be found in a TV remote. So in the coming sessions I'll try pulling apart an old remote and attempting to build my own Arduino version! The next steps in research will regard how I can send complicated signals such as navigating the menu and changing settings such as language. More to come...