Posted August 14, 2013 by Chris

Starting next week, PyroEDU is introducing a new course: An Introduction To Analog Electronics. Here’s a quick summary of the course and some links with more details.

This course is meant to create a pathway into learning about analog electronics, for people who are scared of the math and general trickery that usually comes with it. A hands-on approach is taken in this course through a combination of lecture and experimentation to teach you about the different basic ideas (AC vs. DC, filters and amplifiers) used in analog electronics.

Posted August 13, 2013 by Chris

“I was a bit bored during Christmas, so I decided to construct a whole Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in an FPGA. An FPGA is a programmable integrated circuit, generally programmed using a hardware description language. The FPGA contains thousands of logic blocks, that can be connected together to form complex combinatorial logic, and flipflops are used to implement memory and feedback loops.”

Posted August 12, 2013 by Chris

“The idea of building my own I2C smart DC motor controller is came to me when I was learning and playing together with my son on his LEGO MINDSTORM NXT 2.0 about a year ago. The NXT sophisticated controller also called NXT Intelligent Brick is powered by Atmel 32-bit ARM7 AT91SAM7S256 microcontroller and communicating with Atmel 8-bit AVR ATmega48 acting as a co-microcontroller using I2C protocol.”

Posted August 11, 2013 by Chris

“For a small robot project I needed a way to measure a robot’s progress across the floor. There are various possibilities, such as: use stepper motors, add an encoder to the wheels or use the optical sensor for a mouse.”

Posted August 10, 2013 by Chris

“The Double Down card dealer is a fully programmable automated card dealer. It has the ability to deal a card in two directions (left or right, dealer or player, etc) while at the same time moving linearly perpendicular to those directions (card stack 1, 2, 3, etc).”

Posted August 9, 2013 by Chris

“The FabISP is an in-system programmer for AVR microcontrollers, designed for production within a FabLab. That is, it allows you to program the microcontrollers on other boards you make, using nothing but a USB cable and 6-pin IDC to 6-pin IDC cable. It’s based on the USBtiny and V-USB firmwares, which allow the ATtiny44 to perform USB communication in software.”

Posted August 8, 2013 by Chris

“A while back, I did a wireless temperature sensor project using XBee radios….So I decided to try the same project using inexpensive RF devices. I used a 434MHz transmitter ($4) and receiver ($5) from Sparkfun, and had great success with these cheap devices. I also used a simple LM34 Fahrenheit temperature sensor, two Arduinos, and a two-digit LED display to show the temperature at the receiver end.”

Posted August 7, 2013 by Chris

“The BeagleBone GamingCape transforms your BeagleBone into a full fledged hand-held gaming console capable of playing all the classics such as NES, Gameboy, Sega GameGear, and even Doom. Just drop in 4 AAA batteries and you’ll be playing your favourite games in no time. ”

Posted August 6, 2013 by Chris

“This ain’t yet another ultimate, ultrafast and all-too-miniaturized USB-gadget. It is the ‘official’ USB-version of the XR232-TRNG, taking advantage from the benefits of USB, but retaining fundamental XR232-philosophy of independency, security, transparency and compatibility.”

Posted August 4, 2013 by Chris

“This project will describe how to make a simple digital voltmeter (DVM) using a PIC16F688 microcontroller. The range of this DVM is 0-20V, but you can easily increase or decrease the range of input voltage as your requirements after you understand the voltage scaling method described in this project.”