Preaching A Different Kind of Religon

I skipped out on the morning session of Conference to give an Arduino seminar to the local model railroading group. Last time I went to one of these, it was all the way down in Roseburg! This time I just had to travel several blocks to our local Prince of Peace Church. Not too many people have combined microcontrollers and model railroading quite like I have, so it was up to me to convince them it was easy and fun!

Here are my slides:


During one of the Maker Fairs, I sketched this out to help illustrate the various functions the micro-controller does on the layout:

All together, it is a bit overwhelming, even for me, but taken a piece a time, it is quite doable. Instead of bringing the full layout, I used the Sparkfun Inventor Kit and a small section of track to demonstrate the various ways I use Arduino.

I think it went well. I got lots of question during and after the seminar. It was obvious they were thinking about ways to apply this to their own layouts! I got home in time for the afternoon Conference session and D. Todd Chrisofferson's wonderful talk about women in the church.