Bumblebee Electronic Hub: a Mobile Connected Kit for Basic Experiments

As part of the "Physics Laboratory" primary school students carry out experiments to characterize simple devices such as diodes and rectifier circuits. These experiments are done manually my setting input voltage values to an experimental setup and noting the resultant output voltages. The laboratory report then consists of a graph plotted for "Output versus Input".

This Bumblebee Electronic Hub seeks to create a simple setup without adjustable power supplies, voltmeters and ammeters using a kit based on an ESP32 microcontroller and associated circuitry.

More complex industry standard analog and digital experiment kits sometimes require a dedicated PC interface or an Oscilloscope and Signal-Generator.

By connecting to the kit via Bluetooth using a simple Android application it is possible to cover most simple analog and digital experiments using only a mobile phone.

Analog experiments are carried out by setting analog voltages point-by-point through the BbEHub mobile interface and saving the resultant output voltages. The Application then plots the graph of output versus input.

In the same way digital circuits can be fed with a sequence of inputs the outputs recorded and the timing or logic sequence plotted.

As shown in the following sections analog experiments cover diodes, rectifiers, simple op-amp circuits digital logic gates and sequential circuits such as counters.

1. "Bumblebee Electronic Hub" kit
2. Mobile phone with Application
3. 12V 2A Power Supply

Figures show details of the board layout and details of typical experiments that can be carried out using the Bumblebee Electronic Hub.

Figures provide a brief description of the Bumblebee Electronic Hub and instructions to the user

The link below gives access to the Arduino IDE design files, The schematic and Gerber files for the board and the APK file for the android application.

The APK download may show as a virus. This is a mandatory warning for these type of files. Use with care.

Link to design files