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From: Jon Kirwan on 29 Jun 2010 13:45
On Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:12:39 +0000 (UTC), Simon Clubley
wrote:

><snip>
>To Jon: Are you distinguishing between your students hardware and software
>capabilities ?

I plan the case where both are poor, but will embrace those
with better skills on either side and work with that. The
plan is to work very hard to make everyone comfortable and
satisfied that they succeeded in some fashion. But not to
expect them to necessarily want to continue afterwards. I
just want it to be fun; a tiny bit challenging but not beyond
their own limits. And where they get to take home something
they can show others and laugh about or feel kind of proud of
having worked on. A tangible take-away is important, I
think.

>They may be less developed on the hardware side of things than they are on
>the software side of things or vice versa.

Yes. And my comment about not letting them get near a
soldering iron probably holds. I don't want to have to worry
about burns. Probably use solderless breadboards for the
most part.

>It's certainly true for me;

And me. I've had a job in my long since past doing soldering
as a job -- my first 'real' and regular job, in fact. But
I've never been exceptional at it. I'm still mostly a wire
wrap type, though I'm just starting to get the hang of layout
and making libraries of part footprints and getting a board
done.

>I
>still use DIP components on Veroboard, but can read (and understand) a
>datasheet and write drivers for devices without any problems at all.

Yes, I'm there with you. I can read and understand many
schematics, as well. I can even produce a small number of
modest ones. But I've never sold a single hour of my time
for that purpose. And I never will try to.

>I've
>also, as a hobbyist, created a RTEMS BSP for a ARM board in the past as well.
>
>I tell you this in order to have you think about the possibility that your
>potential students may be at different levels when it comes to hardware and
>software.

Thanks, Simon.

Jon
From: Jon Kirwan on 29 Jun 2010 13:52
On Tue, 29 Jun 2010 07:54:12 -0700 (PDT), steve
<bungalow_steve(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

>On Jun 28, 8:19�pm, Jon Kirwan <j...(a)infinitefactors.org> wrote:
>> On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:56:55 -0700 (PDT), steve
>>
>> <bungalow_st...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>> ><snip>
>> >I think you have conflicting requirements, something easy to use is
>> >going to require big knobs, cables, big connectors and hopefully
>> >solderless === big money. A small flat pcb board with nothing but
>> >holes in it (TI 4.30 etc) is too intimidating for your audience.
>>
>> The reality will be in the details. �And where all this winds
>> up, I don't know right now.
>>
>> These kits, were you able to actually open them and look
>> inside, come with large and small switches, knobs, wheels,
>> gears and gear boxes, dc motors, 40kHz emitters and
>> receivers, LEDs, and a host of other useful items. �I've
>> already got enough stuff to keep the costs of a successful
>> project low and I don't need ANY MORE parts, at all, to do
>> that. �So I know the actual cost here.
>>
>> It may cost more, once I run out of this stuff. �But with
>> hundreds of boxes like this, that may take a bit of time and
>> by then I will know more and can work on the exact supplies I
>> will need.
>>
>> On the last point, the intimidation factor might be there
>> _before_ they get into the classroom. �I can't control their
>> minds before that point in time. �So that is why I mentioned
>> that I need to figure out how to "sizzle" the class. �But
>> once they are there, it is MY JOB to take away any feelings
>> of intimidation. �That's why I get paid the big bucks ($0) to
>> do this. �If I haven't done my job well, then your point is
>> valid. �But if I succeed as I hope I may, then I'm more
>> worried about specific details I need to smooth over and
>> resolve than about this.
>>
>> But I am very glad for your contributing thoughts, just the
>> same. �I need to hear objections and consider them well.
>>
>> Jon
>
>We've taught some high school students before, most of it was
>like a cooking show on TV, you show them some basics, then
>pull out from underneath a table the completed system they could
>tinker with. A microprocessor controlled toy car was a big hit, we
>had
>all the routines written (turn left, turn right, forward, backward
>etc),
>they could call them as they wanted, it was just a bunch of jumps to
>subroutines. The ones that were really interested
>wrote their own code, others couldn't care less and just wanted to use
>the canned routines,everyone was happy.

I'm not expecting a lot. In fact, I consider it a blistering
success if just one high school student in three years of
time "gets it" and then applies themselves significantly
later.

I've been in high school as a volunteer trying to develop
mathematics and physics, as those are my real loves in life,
and struggled here a lot. Hodographs were a success in one
case I remember. And everything else was worth it just to
reach this one individual.

I have already limited my expectations here. But I don't
really care. If I can reach one, I'm good. Two and I will
probably just float around the world in a daze of goodness.
More and I will start getting the story into newspapers!

>Otherwise kids are used to cell phones, they won't be impressed
>by blinking LEDs projects.

Cripes, haven't I heard that one? One kid I talked with
recently, when I asked him what kind of project might
motivate him just a little, said he'd like to program his
Nintendo DS for a new game. The darned thing has shared
memory, an ARM7, and ARM9, and a few somewhat complex
peripherals to manage. I knew instantly that no kid would be
able to take such a giant step, especially as their first.

Sights way, way too high. Must take baby steps, first. My
job is to try and make those first steps enough fun, and no
more, to maybe get one or two to take a second step next.

Jon
From: Jon Kirwan on 29 Jun 2010 13:56
On Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:24:19 -0700 (PDT), Micke
<oh2aun(a)gmail.com> wrote:

>Since you are considering using Forth, I would suggest
>FlashForth for PIC18F and dsPIC30F.
>It is a interactive Forth system which compiles directly to Flash
>memory.
>
>It is very hands on. You can define your own commands
>to try out what happens with whatever you have hanging of those PIC
>pins.
>
>All the software tools are included on the PIC (native compiler,
>assembler, interpreter).
>You just need an (old) PC with a serial terminal
>and a text editor to create your own programs.
>
>Cheers Mikael
>http://flashforth.sourceforge.net

Thanks, Mikael. I am only cracking open the door on this
one. I've used Forth a very long time ago, never had a
single client ever ask me if I knew Forth let alone ask me to
work a project in it, but I want to keep a good choice in my
back pocket here just in case it happens to fit some student
project I encounter. I certainly don't want to miss any
opportunity. So thanks for the suggestion and I will take a
look at it and see what I think about it!

My expectation, though, is that it won't come up and I won't
use it... except maybe in one unlikely case or two. But it
is worth having a good option here just in case.

Jon
From: Peter Keller on 29 Jun 2010 16:31
Jon Kirwan <jonk(a)infinitefactors.org> wrote:
>> On Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:58:55 +0000 (UTC), Peter Keller <psilord(a)cs.wisc.edu> wrote:

> I've been wrestling these things through my mind and I'm
> quite sure that most will not be ready, right away anyway, to
> deal with debouncing -- whether I/O pin-change interrupt
> based or timer polling based -- and any kind of state machine
> involved there. So yes, much needs to be kept 'under the
> hood' for a while. Yet they need to have the freedom to
> choose their own project, too.

I'm by no means an instructor of any kind, but I would choose to just explain
scary looking black boxes away like "the motors inside of vacuum cleaners need
quite a lot of physics to describe and understand how they work, however, you
don't need to know that! You only need to know the interface to the vacuum
cleaner: the plug which goes into the wall, the switch which turns it on, the
bag which you have to check to see if it is full and replace, and the moving
brush into which fingers are not to be put!"

Gaining a method to systematically discover and learn the interface to
something, be it a PIC, a word processor, a vacuum cleaner, or an escalator, is
arguably more important that understanding how it works. As long as the
various pieces have identifyable "slots and tabs" that fit together reasonably
well, who cares what the pieces do on the inside.

> I do hope that some will eventually want to know how these
> things may work, underneath. I will let their own interests
> and questions guide me; I will give them as much as they can
> handle AND NO MORE.

I'll completely defer to your expertise in teaching a crowd like this. I have
no understanding of how to do that.

> This is supposed to be fun and improvisational.

The thing which ultimately drew me as a hobbiest to electronics and digital
design, was the fact I could make something which existed in and manipulated
the real world. I discovered this was MUCH more viscerally satisfying than
carefully altering the orientations of magnetic fields on hard drive platters
in unknown locations, which is what I do for a day job--I'm a hacker. :)

Good luck with your project!

-pete
From: steve on 29 Jun 2010 16:57
On Jun 29, 1:52 pm, Jon Kirwan <j...(a)infinitefactors.org> wrote:

> Cripes, haven't I heard that one?  One kid I talked with
> recently, when I asked him what kind of project might
> motivate him just a little, said he'd like to program his
> Nintendo DS for a new game.  The darned thing has shared
> memory, an ARM7, and ARM9, and a few somewhat complex
> peripherals to manage.  I knew instantly that no kid would be
> able to take such a giant step, especially as their first.
>

that is the crux of the problem, when I learned about micros in the
70's,
blinking a light in a sequence was impressive, so it was fun to show
off stuff
like that, to blink an LED with a micro requires a lot of things to
work
(code, complier, linker,downloader,cables, compatible pc, power
supply, etc) but the
results today are unimpressively crude

maybe nowadays the equivalent is gene splicing, you know make
a grasshopper with 3 legs in your basement

hey what you doing is great... good luck!
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