Posted December 24, 2012 by Chris

“I wanted to test out a Simple CPLD test board so I decided to try the simplest thing possible – a binary counter. I attached a 10xLED bar to a PCB and mounted it to a pin socket to use it as a display.”

Posted December 23, 2012 by Chris

“AvrPhone is a simple mobile phone with touchscreen. His brain is microcontroller AVR ATmega128 (128 kB flash, 4 kB SRAM) and user interface, the 2.4 “LCD display with touch foil and controller ILI9325B , equipped with a 16-bit bus. The entire system is powered by a 3.7 V/1000 mAh Li-Pol battery.”

Posted December 22, 2012 by Chris

“This week I want to build an audio and light beacon for my final project. My high elevation baloon tracker sends its GPS position by radio and by SMS, but for example if you land in a forest, the GPS can be innacurate and have an error of 100m or more, so it can be difficult to find the device if stuck on a tree or a rooftop, etc. So I want to build a device that when the tracker lands, outputs some sound and light to help finding the tracker.”

Posted December 21, 2012 by Chris

“Originally created in 2006, the Kilroy Development Board has given thousands (~450 a year) of middle and high school students the opportunity to learn basic electronics, BASIC programming and soldering. Using PICAXE’s 18X, and now the 20×2/20m2 microcontroller, students can now program in BASIC and take full advantage of Arduino’s wide range of shields.”

Posted December 20, 2012 by Chris

Last week, we learned more about The OpAmp, the 8th lesson of the first PyroEDU course: An Introduction To Modern Electronics. This week we’re introducing an even more complex integrated circuit: The 555 Timer.

If the op-amp was a great invention for analog electronics, the 555 timer was the invention of the decade for digital electronics. This lesson will show you why we needed a single device like the 555 timer and how we can use a 555 timer to create a predicatable oscillator using some theory and mathematical equations.

Posted December 19, 2012 by Chris

“The FFT operations are done in 16-bit fixed-point. These 128 point FFT processes, applying window, butterfly operations and scalar output, could be executed in real-time (within 7.3 msec). This is pretty fast considering it is processed with only a cheap microcontroller. The spectrum bars are displayed in order of fundamental frequency x 0 (DC component), fundamental frequency x 1, x2, x3, … from left to right.”

Posted December 17, 2012 by Chris

“In this article, we will show you the process we took for building the LED Christmas tree. The LED control will be done entirely in digital logic and hardware, no software! There will be multiple display modes you can set, as well as a bit of ‘speed’ control, giving you full control over how you spread your Holiday cheer.”

Posted December 16, 2012 by Chris

“The system uses accelerometers to detect the user’s head tilt in order to direct mouse movement on the monitor. The clicking of the mouse is activated by the user’s eye blinking through a reflective sensor. The keyboard function is implemented by allowing the user to scroll through letters with head tilt and with eye blinking as the selection mechanism.”

Posted December 15, 2012 by Chris

“I took a class on digital controls at the UW this summer, and the class included a project option. I’d wanted to build a balance bot for a while, so this was the perfect opportunity. ”

Posted December 14, 2012 by Chris

“This website describes the design I came up with, documents the step-by-step construction process, and includes all the electronic diagrams and software you may need if you want to build your own magnetometer, should you attempt to do so.”