
The course content is roughly divided by the section topics.
Most sections have the following structure:
Hi, and thanks for taking this course :)
This video describes the recommended knowledge and material to take the most out of this course.
Explore why life beyond Arduino matters and learn how microcontrollers work on hardware and software, including sensors, actuators, and building your own controllers from algorithms rather than library functions.
Explore the typical microcontroller architecture, including the CPU, memory, ADC, timer, GPIO, and serial interfaces, and the parallelism between modules and the CPU within a bus architecture.
Explore how a switch matrix multiplexes many signals into few pins by assigning multiple functions per pin, demonstrated with an eight-pin LPC810 and a twenty-pin variant.
Turn on and off LEDs via a digital output, calculate series resistor values, and understand current, polarity, and brightness, while noting that LEDs and resistors aren’t a silver bullet.
Pulse-width modulation uses duty cycle to set average voltage, five volts at 75% equals 3.75 volts; a low-pass filter converts it to an analog waveform for audio tones and DTMF.
Explore how to drive led arrays, from seven-segment displays to multi-digit matrices, using column-row scanning, common anodes/cathodes, and resistors to light specific leds.
Explore seven segment displays, comparing common anode and common cathode wiring and learning resistor requirements for each segment. Demonstrate multiplexing a multi-digit display to show numbers via rapid digit cycling.
Examine a five-digit scan algorithm for seven-segment displays using a digits array, modulo arithmetic, and a decode function to flash digits with persistence of vision.
Explore the launchpad development software and its energia-based arduino clone workflow, highlighting beginner usability issues, buggy error reporting, and misaligned line references that hinder learning.
In this course you will learn that there's more to life than the Arduino Uno and that there's probably a better way to do what you've been doing with microcontrollers. Yes, Arduino is an excellent platform to get you started, but you will learn that Arduino is not part of the day to day electronics you use like your TV, microwave oven or car dashboard.
Do you know how the supporting hardware in a microcontroller work? Well, you will learn that here. Also as a bonus you will learn how the functions in dumbed-down libraries work.
This is not exactly a hands-on course, not if you don't want it to be. There are no promises on the projects you’ll make because I won’t force you to build something you didn’t choose to. However, I strongly recommend that you code along. Several microcontroller development platforms are showcased, but you should follow the examples with your own microcontroller.
You should know that most lectures have the following elements:
-Recommended Material
-“Recall” Slide
-Actual lecture content
-Live Demo
- and Quizzes