Video tutorials

Don’t worry about which electrical contact you connect to the positive or negative output terminals of the speed controller. The cables can always be swapped later.

Do not solder anything to the speed controller.

If you screw the bolts too far into the motor, it may stop working. This won’t be an issue later, but if it causes problems now, place a few nuts on the bolt before using it. This will stop the bolt from going too deep into the motor.

The dip switch is mounted by using the holes that are already placed on the PCB board.

If you’ve connected everything correctly, you can now turn on the motor and control its speed using the potentiometer.

The potentiometer is the small knob on the motor speed controller that you can rotate.

It doesn’t matter if you connect the wire to the positive (cathode) or the negative (anode) terminal of the battery.

Note that for power sources, the cathode and anode are marked opposite to that of diodes and other electronics. In them, the cathode is the positive terminal and the anode is the negative one.

It is part of the Functions block, but what does it do?

Due to the long construction, you need to be careful with time in this lesson. Don’t let the students spend too much time building. If you think you can manage it, you may let them find their own sheet music and adapt it, but we recommend sticking to the short section from Ode to Joy as shown in the tutorial. This melody also serves as preparation for the next lesson, where a ready melody will again be needed. Here’s what the program looks like: