@MrRichardB I have taught Robotics with the Photon for almost 2 semesters now and am very happy with it. All 15 Photons can hook up at the same time to regular Wifi. Our schoolās Wifi is fine some days and terrible other days (terrible for all Wifi not just the Photon on those days I simply do other types of learning). I do not yet have a good way to use the Photon without Wifi, since only my teacher computer seems to allow a serial connection. With Wifi I really like the Publish command and the new Particle Console. Very slick and fast to test if something is working.
Note: I do the first internet connections with the Photon after school when the Wifi is not busy. Doing it as a class is an exercise in frustration.
I still do not know how to reclaim a photon, I assume the steps are reasonably easy @ScruffR I just have not done it yet.
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For logins I do a bit of an email trick. I use my email with +01 before the @ for my students and then assign a password to that account.
example
myemail+01@gmail.com password hjsadjasjf for student pair 01
myemail+02@gmail.com password ldfglhkfhd for student pair 02
To make it really easy you can assign the same password for all 15 sites.
The advantage of this system is that my email gets all correspondence for any password changes etc.
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I have the students put their work both on Google Docs in folders that have been shared with me and on Github. From Github I can make a mobile phone App using Phonegap Build.
I have 15 Photon kits $29.00 but wish I had purchased the Photon Maker kit $89.00
I have 15 SNAP circuits extreme 750 for $90 (Not perfect, but really easy to use)
15 DC motors with 15 motor drivers
15 Stepper motors and am getting 15 stepper motor drivers
15 Servo motors
15 Range Finders
about 30 single board sensors Gyro, Accel, GPS, temp, dust, IR ā¦
I spend most of my time trying to get these serial sensors working.
Most of the start of the course is working with analog and digital sensors and actuators.
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I have a curriculum but am tweaking it as I go. Will try to put some videos on my youtube channel eventually.
It is all a work in progress. For the last month of the semester the students are expected to make at least one of three possible final projects that connect a sensor with the internet and cause an actuator to do something. One project must be their own design to solve a unique problem.
My main webpage that the kids work with is at
http://rocksetta.com/spark-core-photon/ajaxBetter.html
with a github at https://github.com/hpssjellis/spark-core-web-page-html-control
I also teach Game Coding and 3D printing which goes very well with learning how to work with the Photon. The game coding class helps with programming the Photon and the 3D Printing helps with the supporting structures.
Good luck. Contact me on twitter @rocksetta or here.