By Doug Phillips, worldwide embedded processing university program manager
The three course sequence at the University of Texas at Austinprovides students with opportunities to get hands on experience in embedded systems in a way that produces quality projects in the second year of curriculum that we often only see in fourth year students. Recently, I was invited to campus for the end-of-year project competitions for these outstanding courses. The TI University Program has been involved with UT Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering for many years. It's exciting to see the dedication and innovation of the faculty, including Professors Valvano, Yerraballi and Bard, supported by the passion of our own Cathy Wicks, to bring new teaching concepts into play while encouraging such creativity with TI microcontrollers into student projects.
In order to inspire some of our student readers and the instructors guiding them, I wanted to give you a taste of the projects featured from each of the three courses. Let us know on Twitter (@AroundTI) if you’re working on a course this summer!
EE319K Introduction to Embedded Systems: This course allows students to discover how the computer interacts with its environment. It provides hands-on experiences of how an embedded system could be used to solve EE problems. Students learn hands-on experiments using a TI TM4C123 ARM Cortex M4 LaunchPad, breadboard and add on LCD.
- Featured project: The top 8 demos out of 150 student projects were displayed at the end-of-year project day. The teams built video games ranging from Tetris to speed racing. Watch this video for a summary of the winners:
(Please visit the site to view this video)
This course is also the subject of an online EdX Massive Open Online Course (MOOC): UT.6.01x Embedded Systems - Shape The World
EE445L Embedded Systems Design Lab: This course teaches design of microcontroller-based embedded systems; interfacing from both hardware and software perspectives; and applications, including audio, data acquisition, and communication systems.
- Featured project: Students do an open design project of their own choosing. They lay out a PCB circuit board, including a processor, clock, power, analog and digital circuits. Projects this year included remote control of stepper motors in a mechanical hand, identifying cat door, and directional sound recorder. A video of the projects can be seen here:
(Please visit the site to view this video)
EE445M/EE380L Embedded and Real-Time Systems Lab: This course teaches the design of microcontroller-based embedded systems; interfacing from both hardware and software perspectives; and applications, including audio, data acquisition, and communication systems.
- Featured project: Students compete with their design of autonomous robots controlled by two TI TM4C123 ARM Cortex M4 Microcontrollers. The students implement a distributed real-time operating system and accomplish autonomous driving with up to 8 sensors and two motors. The best time through the maze wins. To watch the race, watch:
(Please visit the site to view this video)
Hats off to these students on their innovative projects and cheers to the end of a great school year!
If any educators are interested in developing programs similar to the courses offered by UT Austin above, all materials are available. TI can help by offering low cost tools and curriculum materials and textbooks. More information can be found here: www.ti.com/valvano.