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Issue #203 June 2007
Projects, Projects and More Projects
by C.J. Abate
When I was at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose last April, I spent a lot of time studying the MCU-based systems on display. At one booth, I watched well-designed mobile robots track lines drawn on the floor of a small “robo arena.” At another booth, I observed a mechanical arm quickly ordering and transferring DVDs in a compact shelving system. At the Luminary Micro booth, I took a close look at some of the projects that placed in the DesignStellaris contest. It was a lot of fun.
During the flight back to Connecticut, it struck me that all of the projects had something in common: similar designs have appeared in the pages of Circuit Cellar. I’m not suggesting that Circuit Cellar articles were the starting points for all of the interesting systems that I saw at the conference, but ask yourself, which other periodical has been running articles about such designs for the past two decades?
Over the years, we’ve published a number of articles about mobile systems and line-following robots. An example is the interesting system described by Peter Hiscocks and Jim Koch in “Electrical Engineering Robot” (Circuit Cellar 153, 2003). Looking for an article about an MCU-controlled mechanical arm that can pick up DVDs or any other small object? As recently as last March, we ran an article about a handy robotic arm controller (M. Hall, A. Patten, and E. Simpson, “Robotic Arm Control System,” Circuit Cellar 200, 2007). And what about oscilloscopes? Jingxi Zhang and Yang Zhang won First Prize in the DesignStellaris contest for their LM3S811-based multifunctional oscilloscope. If you’re a long-time subscriber, you’ve seen versions of similar systems described in Circuit Cellar as far back as 1988. The first was Russell Lindgren’s article “10-MHz/8-bit Digitizing Board for the IBM PC: An Affordable Digital Oscilloscope on a Plug-in Board” (Circuit Cellar 5, 1988).
This month, we feature a variety of articles that will inspire you to start working on a project of your own. Perhaps the system you design will place in a Circuit Cellar design contest, end up on display at a major conference, or both.
If communication systems are your thing, start with the article “Network of Keypads” (p. 16). This system was designed by a team of engineers led by Dhananjay Gadre after their interest was piqued by a keypad system that they saw on a game show. After watching a few episodes of the international hit “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?,” this enthusiastic design team built a working keypad network of their own.
Want to know what it takes to place at the top of a major international design contest? Check out Naubert Aparicio’s article about his video-based motion sensor (p. 24). The project won Third Prize in the 2006 Atmel AVR Design Contest.
If you pay close attention to the bylines when you read our articles, you’re probably familiar with the name Peter Gibbs. This month, Peter and Ramon Sargeant describe an easy-to-use dew point monitor that they designed and built at the University of the West Indies (p. 32). The simple system cools a mirror and records the temperature when moisture forms on it.
As you read through the rest of the feature articles, keep in mind that we have a special treat for you this month. Ed Nisley decided to break from his regular analog and RF themes to cover another interesting topic: photomicrography (p. 71). An offbeat topic and cool pics: it doesn’t get much better than this!
Please enjoy, and let me know what you think.
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