Yesterday was the first day that class met. We went over all the parts and tools that we get to play with this semester and ran our first test on the Arduino boards. We got some new parts that we have to solder the pins on ourselves. I have never soldered before, and I am really excited to learn this new skill. I am a little nervous that I will be bad at it at first or mess up a lot, but I suppose that is how you learn.

Seeing all of the new toys was very exciting and definitely got me thinking about all of the cool things I could potentially create this semester.When we were going over the motors that we will be using throughout the class, Phil mentioned that the DC motor could be used, for example, to power a ballerina turning in a music box. As I have mentioned, I love dancing, and I have always liked music boxes too (probably because so many of them have ballerinas in them). So this simple statement resonated in me and especially jolted my creative mind. For some reason this train of thought led me to the vague idea of mechanical sculptures. I have never sculpted before so that part could be interesting, but I really like this idea. I will have to do some research and think about this concept some more.