I needed a clock module students could use on their BBs. I tried a few designs and came up with this right angle concept. I am sure it has been used by others.

The PCB is in two parts. The battery, clock chip and associated parts are on the main board. The I2C pullup resistors are on the upright PCB. More importantly the upright board provides a nice way to label the I2C and power signals.

The header pins come through the main PCB and soldered surface mount style to the upright.

The PCB did not come out well but it works, It was an experiment.
3v0

I have often wished there was a entry under thread tools that let me manage links to interesting threads. The next best thing would be to make a list.

Compiler/Language
C18 RAM and ROM pointers
http://www.electro-tech-online.com/m...rototypes.html

Software (clock/timer) Trim Idea

Referencing C variables in In-line assembly

BootC tiny Wiki on OPEN-CIRCUITS

Dallas One Wire Devices

One Wire Temperature sensor (DS1820) to PC interface.

DIY Dallas 1 Wire Slave discussion.

Unicorn GLCD demo




Construction

Clock battery charging.

...

Today we started work with the toolkits. Each student has everything they need to work with solderless breadboards in a small case. The images are of the case I have been using for a few months. The students tool selection consists of 3 breadboards, combo wire cutter/stripper, junebug, speaker and wire.

The first project is to wire 2 74HC595's to drive LEDs from the Junebug. We are using the web article Serial to Parallel Shifting-Out with a 74HC595 written for the Arduino. Most everything but the code itself is applicable.

EDIT: I had the students make two changes to the circuit as used by the Arduino. The first was to tile MR to VCC with a 4.7K pullup and add a switch and pull it low. The second was to have the 74xx595 sink rather then source the LEDs.

The changes are trival but it allows the manual use of the MR to zero out ths shift register. This will cause all LEDs to go dark on the next latch chock/pulse.

The students are making good progress learning C on the Junebug. Today I am changing the connectors on old PC speakers so they can be used with outside two pins on the connector at the USB end of the Junebug. I am going to use a resistor to limit the current to about 20 ma as measured with meter. That will allow the speakers to be used with one output pin or as a bridged setup. Last year we had 3 students working with speakers and the sound was horrid. I may add a few ohms for my sanity.

I have ordered small keypads that I hope to interface with PICs. They require 9 pins which is too much for the Junebug so we will be looking at using 18F2321's or better on BB's. I have made a prototype of a small target board that includes the ICSP connector. The board has pins to fit a BB. The idea is that this little boards will save some time getting various projects setup.

A while back I ordered 20 of the 24x1 line wintech LCD displays sold as LCD-111 by...

The projector came in and I rearranged the room again. The good news is that it is a 1024x768 resolution unit. I scrounged around and found a 6 or 8 foot projection screen.

For the first time I can let the students watch me demo code. I plan to use a small USB cam to show the Junebug in action as I step through code.

It has been a bit of a battle to get enough Junebugs built and running. I started on a batch of 6 prior to school starting. 4 of the 6 came out OK. On one I had a LED in upside down (duh) which was easy to fix. The last has some problem with the target A1. It is shorted to another trace and it loads the system to where VPP does not come up. The short is not to ground or VDD.

I sent the Junebugs home with the kids this weekend mostly to get them used to the idea that they can be used at home. The students without laptops will need to install software on their system.

One student has a USB port that causes...

Earlier we studied computer basics such as memory and ports.

We started programing this week. everyone turned on then blinked the first LED using the Junebug tutor. Thanks Bill!

We spent about a half hour learning about simple multiplexing and charlieplexing. I provided work sheets for charlieplexing LED's with 3,4, and 5 lines.

I introduced arrays and provided two constant arrays that held TRISA and LATA values for lighting the charlieplexed Junebug LED's. The class had worked out these values when we studied charlieplexing.

Today we worked out problems for a few individuals. By the end of class many of the students had the Junebug LED displaying interesting sequences. It was rather exciting to see the enthusiasm. They wanted to take the Junebugs home with them so they could play.

The students will be studying loop consturcts and parameter passing the over the next few days.

Most of what we covered to date:

• binary, hex, 2's compliment, base conversions, BCD, ASCII
• logic gates, but not simplification
• Ohm Law and Power equations
• resistor series and parallel, as pullups and current limiting
• LED's and how to calculate a limit resistor for one.
• A brief view of how a computer works including ALU, buses, memory types & org, config mem
• PIC port registers, PORT and TRIS

We watched parts of 2057 on Friday and will watch a bit more on Monday.

Next week we will start using the Junebugs.

To my surprise and dismay I was gifted with a room about half again as large as the classroom I was using. It is a great space but I had already spent time getting the previous room ready.

It is half of a double wide trailer setup for use as overflow classrooms in the 80's and 90's.

It has tile floors (good for electronics) and running water (good for etching). There are several banks of kitchen like cabinets. The top units have been overloaded and are starting to come undone. Some repair is in line.

The space used to be an art classroom. There is a pottery kiln next to my desk.
I will post some pictures when I get it clean and set up.

I love pizza but there is too much fat and questionable ingredients in purchased pizzas.

This pizza uses a thin (not thick) baking powder crust. I use a bread machine to mix the dough in about 5 minutes.

For a 16" pizza crust add 3 cup of flour then 1 TBS baking powder in the bread machine.

Start the machine on the dough cycle and allow the baking powder to mix with the flour for a few seconds.

Add 1 cup of water, use about 30 seconds to do so.

At this point the dough will be to dry. Slowly add additional water until the dough forms an upside down tornado with the tip of the funnel working it way around the top of the bread pan.

This is just a bit too moist. Add a few sprinkles of flour and the tornado will detach and form a ball.

Allow the bread machine to run till...

The first year I started out teaching C++ with 8 or 10 kids. After 2 weeks I was down to 3. The kids wanted an easy A and left when they found out it was work. One of the 3 left at the end of 9 weeks.

Second semester I switched to embedded systems. After a few weeks I asked one of the two remaining students to leave. He was not doing the work. I had a single student most of the 2nd semester who graduated and enrolled in a university CS program.

This past year I started with best friend and younger brother of last years student. The student I asked to leave the previous year was back for 1 semester.

The other two students from last year will be back along with 3 or 4 new kids.