Assignments

This week we learned about.

Group Assignment

Measure the power consumption of an output device.
Document your work on the group work page and reflect on your individual page what you learned.

Individual Assignment

Add an output device to a microcontroller board you've designed and program it to do something.

Final Project Development

Roadmap

Group Assignment

Measuring Power Consumption of LED
Measuring power consumption is a crucial aspect of assessing the energy efficiency and performance of electrical or electronic devices. Power consumption refers to the rate at which energy is used by a device and is typically measured in watts (W) or milliwatts (mW).
To measure power consumption, you need a power meter or wattmeter, which is a device that can measure electrical power. The basic idea is to measure the current (in amperes, A) flowing through a device and the voltage (in volts, V) across it. With these measurements, you can calculate power using the formula:
Power (P) = Voltage (V) × Current (I) Power (P)=Voltage (V)×Current (I).

Individual Assignment

We had to add an output device to a microcontroller board I've designed and program it to do something. For this I decided to try out simple output devices lije LCD 16x2 as it was time to explore.
We will be using an I2C module which is basically a serial communication protocol that allows microcontrollers and peripheral devices to communicate over a two-wire bus, using SDA (Serial Data) and SCL (Serial Clock) lines, enabling efficient data exchange for short-distance applications. An I2C LCD interface module simplifies connecting and controlling LCD displays using the I2C protocol, reducing the number of required GPIO pins on microcontrollers and simplifying wiring. Image source.

Connections: Very important to check out your micro controllers pinouts. I checked Xiao Eso32 c3's pinouts

VCC-VCC
GND-GND
SCL-D5(Designated connection for SCL in Xiao esp32 c3)
SDA-D4(Designated connection for SCL in Xiao esp32 c3)

p.s. I assumed SCL wasn't requried because it was clock but turns out it was very important. Took me about 2 hours to figure out this problem later on!
Next, I had to download an external library for the LCD I2C module, which is available here or from the Arduino software itself.
The Arduino IDE includes a built-in library for LCDs, but it does not support the I2C module by default. Therefore, I had to install an additional library for LCD I2C. If you are using the library from the provided link, it comes as a ZIP file after downloading.
LCD I2C Module
To install it, open the Arduino IDE, go to Sketch > Include Library > Add .ZIP Library, and select the downloaded file. After having this library installed your software, go to files > examples and you will see that the library comes with attached examples. So I first chose the hello board example and it ...did not work!!!

/*
*	Hello_World.ino
*
*	Author: Frank Häfele
*	Date:	01.12.2023
*
*	Object: Print Hello World on LCD Display
*/

#include 
#include 

LCD_I2C lcd(0x27, 16, 2); // Default address of most PCF8574 modules, change according

void setup() {
    Wire.begin();
    lcd.begin(&Wire);
    lcd.display();
    lcd.backlight();
}

void loop()
{
    lcd.print("     Hello"); // You can make spaces using well... spaces
    lcd.setCursor(5, 1); // Or setting the cursor in the desired position.
    lcd.print("World!");
    delay(500);

    // Flashing the backlight
    for (int i = 0; i < 5; ++i)
    {
        lcd.backlight();
        delay(50);
        lcd.backlightOff();
        delay(50);
    }

    lcd.backlight();
    lcd.clear();
    delay(500);
}

void loop()
{
    lcd.print("Yayy"); // You can make spaces using well... spaces
    lcd.setCursor(5, 1); // Or setting the cursor in the desired position.
    lcd.print("Fab World!");
    delay(500);

I also wanted to try with OLED so I used arduino to check if my OLED was functioning properly or not. And it was a success and it displayed "Hi Tsheltrim" To simply start, we need to download various Libraries such as Adafruit SSD1306-for controlling the SSD1306 OLED display and adafruit GFX Library-for graphics functions like text, shapes, lines, etc and finally Adafruit BusIO- which gets installed automatically when you install Adafruit SSD1306

#include 
#include 
#include 

// OLED display size
#define SCREEN_WIDTH 128
#define SCREEN_HEIGHT 64

// Create OLED display object
Adafruit_SSD1306 display(SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT, &Wire, -1);

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(115200);

  // Initialize OLED
  if (!display.begin(SSD1306_SWITCHCAPVCC, 0x3C)) {
    Serial.println(F("OLED not found"));
    while (true);
  }

  // Clear and write message
  display.clearDisplay();
  display.setTextSize(2);              // Bigger text
  display.setTextColor(WHITE);
  display.setCursor(0, 20);            // Move text down a bit
  display.println("Hi Tsheltrim");     // Your message
  display.display();                   // Show on screen
}

void loop() {
  // Nothing here for now
}

The feedback were as follows:

The 5 pin connectors for GND, 3V3, and 5V are not properly connected in the schematic. All 5 connection points must be connected to their respective MCU pin.
Your D1 and D2 LEDs are currently floating and disconnected; they need to be connected to ground.
What are these LEDs, and why are they connected in series?
At the moment, you don't have LEDs to indicate if your 5V and 3V3 lines have power (Power Indicator LEDs).
If you finish the connections this way, D1 and D2 will become programmable LEDs.
J3 is in the same location as the USB connector for the Xiao, which might make it an awkward location for the connector.
Consider pushing the connectors away from the MCU connector a bit more to make it easier to solder.
Ensure there is a 1cm empty space around the MCU.

Then with my generic board I did all of the connections and the Wooohooo, the lcd worked. The code is the same as given above with the "Yayyy Fab World!" being displayed.

Final Project Development

This week mostly, I explored the mechanisms behind output devices and worked with modules such as i2c. Then I had a session with my regional instructor sir Rico and clarified my doubts regarding the model for my final project. This was a briefing where I presented my model and then he suggested useful feedbacks that I will use to further enhance my design.
Key Modifications of my design for now

The dimensions will be 1m x 45 cm x 1 m
The face of the pig will be flat and instead its eyes and nose will budge out.
The nose of the pig will be used as the eletronics components house
There will be 2 plants placed in it and they will have a partition that will serve as a water reservoir. That water reservoir will be a used mineral water bottle

Well turns out my board was faulty then so I created a more generic board with Rico sans suggestion.

Files

You can access the files here
General purpose board - Tsheltrimduino