[Swansea Hackspace] Ideas for workshops

[Graham Owens]

Hi people,

Additional ideas for the technical workshops.

I was thinking that - if it has not already been covered, a potential
future workshop could build on the PIC workshops that have been done.

The idea is basically to learn the basic input/output blocks.

examples,

many new people to microcontrollers, connect a switch between +5v to the
pic input pin, then get frustrated that the switch is unreliable due to
floating when the switch is open.  The block would be a switch, with the
the pull-up or down as required.  Explanation of why the pull-up/down
resistor is required.

a simple relay output from the pic, using an easily obtainable mostfet to
drive the relay, and include the protection diode.  Again explain how it
works, and why we need the mosfet, and what the purpose of the protection
diode is.

a simple piezo buzzer, including any protection resistors.

a simple potential divider, explain how to calulate the drop between the
input and output.

how to correctly connect an led, and calculate the current limiting
resistor.

It would be my hope that these building blocks were universal, and could be
applied to any other controller type such as AVR, arduino etc. as well as
non uP controlled projects.  For example using the switch module connected
directly to the relay module would still produce a nicer circuit than
running the coil voltage through the switch directly.

The basic idea is to build a small library of very simple circuits that can
be combined with the existing pic workshops so that people can go away and
build circuits of their own, that will hopefully be reliable, and can be
combined into larger projects by just duplicating these small blocks.

This is probably a horrible description, but I hope that people understand
what I mean.

Additionally, would there be any interest in TTL LOGIC as a workshop?

Graham
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