4-Button Piano

Here’s another cool Lab that I worked on as part of the edX MOOC I mentioned before using the Texas Instruments TM4C123G Launchpad Eval kit.  To learn more details about that course, please see the Lab 10 explanation. This time in Lab 13 I was tasked with developing a 4-button piano that … Continue reading

Stop-Go-Walk!

MOOC Well, I thought I’d let you all know why I’ve been a bit behind on my blog posting.  One of the 2 reasons… Early March, I decided to take an online MOOC course related to learning embedded microcontroller programming.  That stands for Massive Open Online Course given online by an organization called edX … Continue reading

Magic Cooler??

  (Not an April Fool’s joke) Andres, Nikki and I at Freescale have submitted an entry for the Austin Mini Maker Faire 2015 based on the Music and Lights project exhibited here!  Of course it since has been converted from using Atmel-based Arduino to using Freescale (Kinetis) based Teensy 3.1 !! The … Continue reading

Game of Life To Binary Clock!

At Austin Maker Faire 2008, I bought a simple board from LadyAda, aka Adafruit Industries, that exhibited Conway’s Game of Life.   The so-called ‘Game of Life’ is a zero-player ‘game’ where a 2-dimensional grid with an initial state is defined and then time is allowed to proceed according to … Continue reading

Teensy Music!

Finally got Music and Lights program previously working on Arduino Uno ported over to the Teensy 3.1! (Did this the night before the SuperBowl, so had the NFL on the brain). The Teensy supports an add-on to the Arduino IDE (software editor) called Teensyduino.  This permits taking the same Arduino … Continue reading

Head of a Pin

Ok, this really is a nanowonder!  Admittedly, this chip came out by Freescale last year but I just received it in a business card like format: Did you miss it?  That’s the MCU (microcontroller unit) there in the little window set into the card next to the lifesize image of … Continue reading

The Teeny, Tiny, Teensy

  Speaking of little things making a big difference, I just got this little board called “Teensy” to try things on. Here are some basic specs as compared to some popular Arduino models: With its 256kB of Flash, 64kB of RAM, and 72MHz processor, it fits between an Arduino Uno and Arduino Due … Continue reading

Fakeduino

Late last month I received my second Arduino, which took a bit longer than usual to arrive, and when it did, it came directly from China in a small package.  There was not the usual colorful little box and package of stickers, which made me suspicious. Sure enough, looking more … Continue reading