Examine some basic microcontroller concepts, how they are used and some generic I/O paths. The intent is to give the audience a broad picture of microcontrollers and how they are used.
These videos are outstanding! Excellent job Eli! I wish Volt Vision's senior design teams had these videos for the 4 consecutive years we tried to use Freescale technology. I remember when CW switched over to Eclipse... one of my student teams became "Guinea Pig Testers". It took them 4+ months to get an "out of the box" example project to build successfully. There was no help whatsoever from the local Freescale support team because it was a college project. Unfortunately it was years later that I learned about John McLellan and his awesome team...and again more years later I see these videos.
Excellent, excellent, excellent work! These are perfect for beginner students.
Btw, the audio is still cutting out just before the 11min mark on the first video.
Original report of this sound problem on Aug27, 2013... Today's date Apr25, 2014
I look forward to more videos and I will start referring people to these as an excellent learning resource.
Thanks for the feedback. I find that there a 3 or 4 major hang ups that new students find themselves in when starting with microcotnrollers (Wheter it being Freecale, TI, etc).
1.) You *have* to understand the build tools. In this case, Eclipse. This is not a Freescale only issue. 75% of the problems I seem with getting things to compile is that the student doesn't understand the relationship between Eclipse and how the compilers use your files to produce the binary. This is where mbed, aruduino, etc. have done well. The build tools are very simple. the challenge is that you always give something up for having the ease of use. They are key to getting people started. After you get comfortable, then lay on the more complex build tools. I.E. learn how to paint your walls before you build the entire house :-)
2.) You have to fundamentally understand what you want to do in the big picture. Often times we look at example code, get confused and forget what we are trying to do (regardless of platform). This is another big chunk of frustration. I see a lot of confusion arises in that people get frustrated with the tools but it is compounded by the fact they do have a clear goal of what they want to achieve.
3.) Students coming in really don't have enough C code experience to make use of examples. Once you get past twiddling LEDs, you have to belnd in more abstract concepts to structure your code. Most of the professional tools assume you have a grip on data structures, pointers, etc. Couple this with my observation that students do like to read, read ,read, read. This is a large part of engineering. Colleges are doing a poor job of teaching embedded programming. I hope to have some good videos on embedded coding.....
4.) Things like Arduino help get people started but it is kinda of like the guitar hero version of being a musician. It is easy to get started but you are ultimately limited in what you can do. It turns out that using the professional tools can be tough but the reward is pretty big. I have always found that it is an unreasonable expectation for someone to come and and feel that you should be up and running a warp drive unit in 5 minutes. Even when I get helper libraries, etc. I take the time (which is sometimes days) to read all of the data sheets, manuals, etc *before* I start. 99.99% problems arise from the nuances that you simply can't skip over. I
So, the video series is a start. We are trying to create a bridge to help people get over the "hump". It turns out that most of the problems happen early on. I wish I could spend all day just producing educational material to help get people to the next level. It is awesome to see people grow (including myself!). I find the *I* learn a ton just trying to explain things to someone else.
Sorry about the sound problem..... I discovered that I just have to rerecord from scratch....
It was a real pleasure to meet you in person at FTF2014, and to compete against you at the Make IT Challenge. I believe that you are one of the (rare) educators that still believe that students have to learn EXTENSIVELY about the basics, so they know what is behind whatever they do, and I share this vision with you. Our presentations at the FTF's Educator's Day had several points in common, about "advocating for the basics".
Congrats for the great work you are doing with your videos!
