The process
This week is exceiting and area I wanted to learn more about in details. I usually used the microcontrollers for eductaional used which are already build to make robotics and coding easy for children K to 12 who are our main stakholders in the robotics eductaion domain
Microcontroller Comparision:
I am very new in this, so I asked FabGPT to help me in comparing between the list provided and the selection process
01 | I asked for hep to compare and select few to compare
02| Asked for table with basic comparison before opening the data sheets
| MCU | CPU / Class | Clock | Memory (on-chip) | Big “why” |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AVR128DB32 | 8-bit AVR | 24 MHz | 128KB Flash, 16KB SRAM | Best practical 8-bit mixed-signal + 5V friendliness |
| RP2040 | Dual-core Cortex-M0+ | up to 133 MHz | 264KB SRAM | Best for timing + learning 32-bit MCU structure |
| ESP32-C3 | RISC-V + Wi-Fi/BLE | up to 160 MHz | ~400KB SRAM (family) | Best entry to IoT + wireless MCU datasheets |
| ESP32-C6 | RISC-V + Wi-Fi 6/BLE/802.15.4 | up to 160 MHz | 512KB SRAM (noted by vendor) | Best for modern multiprotocol (Thread/Zigbee) |
- Feedback:I was interested to learn more about Rasberry Pie and ESP
Task 01: RP2040
01 | I opened the dtatsheet from this link
02| This is one main information I saw "Code may be executed directly from external memory" "Debug is available via the SWD interface"
03| This diagram shows the pins available to be used in connected the other elements and devices
04| This sentence is in English but I did not anderstant what it means "The four bus masters can access any four different crossbar ports simultaneously, the bus fabric does not add wait states to any AHB-Lite slave access."
05| I looked on youtube for a simple explaination and found this video
06| As I have limited time to allocate for this task, I search sor some explaination video to make sure I understand main concept xand that im ready for the next assifnment from this link
07| I also shared the DataSheet with FabGPT to create me a one page highlighting important information as a user with no experince
08| Functional diagram
09| and I asked to reference pages and section from the datasheet against each important information
10| I looked in to Power Supply Schemes, Im still not sure how will this effect my desecion building the circute
11| I looked in to the different kinds of memorries and tried to understart the differences
12| Processor Controlled Boot Sequence
13| Logic and structure of the GPIO
14| I found this block diagram and the explaination on page 443 was a good summury of all I read in this datasheet
- Feedback: I learned alot and I think PR2040 would be a good choise for a more complicated project than the shoulder guided posture fixture
- Challenge: it was not easy to understant the datasheet bas I did not know many of the conceptes and referenced mentioned
Programing Microcontroller:
Option 01: Building simple curcit
01 | I will be using ESP32-C3-Suppermini for this task as we have more peices of this in our lab and for my project I will need two Microprocessors communicating
02 | It is small and I enough GPIOs for my project
03 | I used AI Gemeni to learn more about the microcontroller
04 | I read the ESP32-C3-Suppermini datasheet to get more details
05| I connected the Microcontroller to a breadboard and made sure I do not connect two pins on the same pinline to avoid short curcits. I also added a 4 legs button
06| then I added a LED light bulb and a 10K resestor.
07| Then I used wire jumppers to connectmy circut.
Pin7 > LED > Resstors > GND
Pin9 > Button > GND. and as Im documneting, I realized a huge mistake. Resstor should be connected before the LED not after
08| then I connected teh MC to the computor to strat programing
09| I used this code from a previous project on Arduio and downloaded the program to the MC
10| When pressing the button, the LED lights ON.
- Feedback: This was a simple curcit created fast to fulfill this assignment.
- Challenge: I mis connected the resestor and LED and came to know about the mistake while I was documneting. This showed the value of documneted to reevaluate the projects and also importance to recheck connections. misplacing resestor may results in damaging some parts.
Option 02: Paython
- Feedback:
- Challenge: