a hobby class on microcontrollers
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From: Jon Kirwan on 27 Jun 2010 17:22 I need to think about a class that will include both young and old, all of whom have very little experience but at least the hope of trying to enjoy such a class on microcontrollers without knowing anything much about what they may be getting themselves into. (And I mean for people who might be 15 years old or even 75 years old! No college credit. Just a community education class with the purpose of some exposure to the world of microcontrollers and how they can be fun to learn about.) Imagine it as taking a "pottery class" might look like for those not knowing anything about various temperatures and glazes and how they interact or the kinds of clay or any of the methods of making pottery; nothing about "throwing" a pot and almost nothing about pinching one up. Students who have NO IDEA at all what they are walking into, but feel it "might be interesting" and willing to have a go at it. A task here is to help them find their own motivations and enable them to succeed with at least one project idea. I may start out with a survey of the class and skills and interests and then provide a spectrum of options to pursue, let them choose their poison so to speak, then give them the tools they will need, some basic education and support, and then 'run the class' in a way that has me alternating between short lectures and going around the room and helping them move forward when facing a barrier. The project itself will need to come from their interests, though. Some may do almost the same thing as others, but in their own unique way. Some may attempt something entirely different. And some may have taken the class before, maybe 3 or 4 times before in fact, and may be "advanced students" who will not need so much teaching time themselves but just a little support and might even be able to act as help for other students who are new, with advice and maybe a little hands-on help, too. An idea I have is to purchase existing kits (which I can get for less than US$1, in ones, cheaper still in larger qtys.) These: http://www.infinitefactors.org/misc/images/sciencetime.png Many of them include a small DC motor, bright red LED, 40kHz emitter and receiver for motion detection, and so on. Actually, quite a few interesting parts. (At less than $1, these even include the boxes and shipping!) One thought I'm considering is to use these as a base concept that the less knowledgeable students can select from. Then to go through an idea stage where we talk about possible modifications using a microcontroller and I work to "limit" their imagination to something they can likely achieve using a microcontroller. The "microcontroller" they choose needs to be something cheap, available in DIP form, has an inexpensive development environment that isn't hard to use, and will probably have to come in BASIC, c, c++, and assembly incarnations. Maybe Forth, too. (Yes, I'm thinking about it.) Or some other 'turtle graphics' environment. I don't mind having to solve a lot of issues before starting, just to make sure there is a spectrum of options here. But the financial "hill" cannot be high. A $30 processor (Parallax) is NOT in the cards. $10 for everything is reasonable. (This must include USB cable, board, a cpu or two, IDE and software tools, and various parts they will combine in some simple way.) $20 is pushing it and will probably put too high a barrier on the less advanced students. The more advanced students will probably be willing to spend more. Examples might be to take the "Robotic Beeper," which includes a DC motor, fairly-decent-for-the-price gear box, wheels (and two o-rings for the drive wheels), battery case for 2 AA batteries, and some wire and other stuff, and consider adding a small micro with dc motor drive circuit (using a cheap, discrete PNP and NPN h-bridge -- the NPNs I get for 0.3 cents each and the PNPs are more like 1 cent each and the resistors are dirt cheap) and letting them think about some interesting thing to do with that. It might be possible to merge this with another kit (the "Electronic Motion Sensor") to do something interesting. Ideas like that, anyway. Out of pocket cost is important. Might be local high schools and after-class time with students drawn from there. Might be as a community outreach class with a community college and a wider range. Might even be held at an old folks' home or residence center as a social activity (or physical therapy) and a chance to bring in others and expand their horizons just a little. It can have a more artsy focus for some, a more practical for others. In pottery, you will see some students go for cups, plates, and bowls -- practical stuff -- while others go for a more Picasso or frilly look and zero practicality. Some will have no imagination at all and will need me to suggest some ideas to build on. But I think students should be able to go in a variety of directions that _they_ choose for themselves. I'd also like to figure out the "sizzle" that will sell the class. There will be meat there, but I need to get them in the door in the first place. Might be sold to parents to provide after hours with students learning but to the parents it lets them not have to worry quite as much about their kids while they are themselves busy at work, etc. Might be sold directly to those in the class by helping provide them with something they can take home and keep and feel proud about. Might be sold to others wanting to go home and try and pass along some interest of theirs to family members. I don't know. I don't have make-or-break expectations about its longer term success. And I don't want to worry about it. I would simply like to consider the idea, flesh it out a bit to see how it 'flies,' and maybe take a chance and see what happens. The worst is nothing at all. And even then, I've tried and learned something from the effort. Anything more than that is probably a good success and I will let the students and potential students help show me the way. It may never amount to much, but simply doing it helps to develop community and that alone is a "good." If there are some constructive thoughts, I'd love to hear them. If you know of a terribly serious flaw (outside of mere ad hominem) that I've completely missed, that's constructive too. Jon
From: linnix on 28 Jun 2010 12:55 > The "microcontroller" they choose needs to be something > cheap, available in DIP form, has an inexpensive development > environment that isn't hard to use, and will probably have to > come in BASIC, c, c++, and assembly incarnations. Maybe > Forth, too. (Yes, I'm thinking about it.) Or some other > 'turtle graphics' environment. I don't mind having to solve > a lot of issues before starting, just to make sure there is a > spectrum of options here. But the financial "hill" cannot be > high. A $30 processor (Parallax) is NOT in the cards. $10 > for everything is reasonable. (This must include USB cable, > board, a cpu or two, IDE and software tools, and various > parts they will combine in some simple way.) $20 is pushing > it and will probably put too high a barrier on the less > advanced students. The more advanced students will probably > be willing to spend more. > > We are suppling these $10 boards to a local college. It might work for you as well. http://linnix.com/udip Atmega32u2 C/C++ (WinAVR) USB boot loader (Atmel Flip) 32K flash 512 eeprom Reset and hwb switches Bi-color LEDs (Red and Green)
From: larwe on 28 Jun 2010 15:26 On Jun 27, 5:22 pm, Jon Kirwan <j...(a)infinitefactors.org> wrote: > An idea I have is to purchase existing kits (which I can get > for less than US$1, in ones, cheaper still in larger qtys.) > These: > > http://www.infinitefactors.org/misc/images/sciencetime.png As a tangential issue, I'm doing some volunteer robot courses for my wife's school, and of course have to fund the equipment myself because NYC schools are even poorer than I am... would you mind sharing your supplier? I managed to get together a couple of robots with a BOM cost just under $10 (programmed using mark-sense cards, which the students print or photocopy), based on surplus motors and such I found on eBay by the pound, and using foamcore as the basic mechanical building material. But I think I could do some fun stuff with those kits you linked. Note: Do you have an issue with RoHS? CPSC guidelines prohibit lead in toys for children <13, which has been a potential issue for me in trying to reuse surplus. I know these are not exactly toys, but it's hard to explain to people.
From: Jon Kirwan on 28 Jun 2010 16:09 On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:26:55 -0700 (PDT), larwe <zwsdotcom(a)gmail.com> wrote: >On Jun 27, 5:22�pm, Jon Kirwan <j...(a)infinitefactors.org> wrote: > >> An idea I have is to purchase existing kits (which I can get >> for less than US$1, in ones, cheaper still in larger qtys.) >> These: >> >> �http://www.infinitefactors.org/misc/images/sciencetime.png > >As a tangential issue, I'm doing some volunteer robot courses for my >wife's school, and of course have to fund the equipment myself because >NYC schools are even poorer than I am... would you mind sharing your >supplier? Hehe. Sure. Winco (grocery store.) I bought up everything I could lay hands on. I've also written to the company that was re-selling them in the US to see if I can lay hands on more of them. (You can see the name on a sticker in the upper left hand corner of each box in that picture.) I have NOT yet received a response. Ultimately, I intend on contacting the Taiwan company involved. But I have a few other steps to get out of the way before I initiate that conversation. In the end, I may also be back looking for supplies. I have enough, for now, to do a few classes. Maybe to get me by for a year or so. So that will put some experience behind me and perhaps I will be off looking for something slightly (or greatly) different in the end. I'm going to just "do it" and see where it takes me and follow the interests I'm shown. >I managed to get together a couple of robots with a BOM cost just >under $10 (programmed using mark-sense cards, which the students print >or photocopy), based on surplus motors and such I found on eBay by the >pound, and using foamcore as the basic mechanical building material. >But I think I could do some fun stuff with those kits you linked. Yes. I went crazy seeing them sitting on the bottom shelf in an aisle right next to baby care products, of all things. Marked down to $1. I got the manager over and snarfed up everything they had. >Note: Do you have an issue with RoHS? No. And I don't plan on thinking about it, either. ;) >CPSC guidelines prohibit lead in >toys for children <13, Since these toys say "8 years old and above" on them, maybe they meet that requirement? I don't know. The TI $4.30 kit probably does meet it, but I'd have to go back and look and I'm too lazy right this minute. >which has been a potential issue for me in >trying to reuse surplus. I know these are not exactly toys, but it's >hard to explain to people. The hurdle I find myself mostly facing, right now, is how to make this fun for the widest variety of people. There is no way I can start out saying, "To make this motor work, use PWM and a varying duty cycle." Not for many of them, anyway! They can be asked to say "Type in 'MOVE FORWARD'" or something like that, though. I don't want this to be canned -- in other words, forced to accept an object that does something I've completely pre-determined for them. I want this to be like clay, where it is a basic medium they can shape into anything they have a mind to try. Yet it must also be as simple as clay to manipulate, too. One person might shape up a deer, or try to. Another might make a cup out of it. I want each to use their own creativity and interest and play. Eventually (or maybe right away for one or two students), some may wish to try their hand at PWM or using timers and interrupts and so on. But I need to smooth the ramp, so that most anyone can at least have a little fun and try their own ideas out and laugh a little. So the hurdle is that assembly, c, and c++ will be "not on the table" for many of them and I need to make sure they have something very easy to use, like a BASIC of some kind. And that means I need to write it or cobble it up from something like tinybasic or get some other bright idea from someone who may yet suggest it. Once I feel comfortable with that, I think I will be ready to take a crack at an actual class. But I have some work ahead of me there, I think, and that is the real barrier facing me in getting this going sooner than later. Jon
From: -jg on 28 Jun 2010 17:28
On Jun 29, 8:09 am, Jon Kirwan <j...(a)infinitefactors.org> wrote: > The TI $4.30 kit > probably does meet it, but I'd have to go back and look and > I'm too lazy right this minute. that does look very impressive teaching/price ratio. > > The hurdle I find myself mostly facing, right now, is how to > make this fun for the widest variety of people. There is no > way I can start out saying, "To make this motor work, use PWM > and a varying duty cycle." Not for many of them, anyway! > They can be asked to say "Type in 'MOVE FORWARD'" or > something like that, though. perhaps this ? http://www.rowley.co.uk/msp430/basic.htm ( tho it is a bit primitive ) - and I would add some functional targets too: ** Able to Source Step-Simulate on a PC So students do not need a target, to develop ** Able to Source Step-debug on the target The better this is, the less item 1 matters. ** Able to operate on a Flash Drive So they can work on any PC -jg |