Exploring Electrical and Computer Engineering

Over the past few weeks, our team has been exploring the fundamentals of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Before assembling our first prototypes, we dedicated time to researching the most effective components and platforms to use. Members divided into teams focusing on hardware, coding, and interface design, each responsible for proposing and comparing options.

The hardware group led a discussion on Arduino Uno versus ESP32, weighing accessibility against capability. While the Uno’s simplicity made it ideal for beginners, the ESP32’s built-in Wi-Fi and greater processing power offered room for more complex applications. Still, we chose to begin with the ESP32 to explore wireless connectivity.

The interface team explored different approaches for data visualization and control, comparing Blynk to traditional logging through Excel. Blynk’s ability to display real-time data and allow remote interaction through a phone dashboard made it the preferred choice for live monitoring.

With the groundwork complete, we moved to practical testing, wiring LEDs and CO₂ sensors to microcontrollers, programming simple interactions, and visualizing results on Blynk dashboards. This first phase marked the beginning of our hands-on experience with embedded systems and introduced the core ideas of ECE.