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Book: 100 Projects and Techniques in SPIN, for beginners. Coming up. Project — Parallax Forums

Book: 100 Projects and Techniques in SPIN, for beginners. Coming up. Project

HarpritHarprit Posts: 539
edited 2010-09-15 18:03 in Propeller 1
I've decided to put down some of the ideas that occurred to me as I was
investigating PASM as suitable for projects for beginners. Core techniques that
beginners need to understand. Basic stuff.

I made a list and so far it has about 60 items in it. I don't want to tell you
what is on the list just yet so that I do not bias your thinking but I will post it when I
have 100 projects. In the mean time I am soliciting ideas from the
beginners who read this forum. What kind of projects are you interested in.?
Each project has to be covered in two or three pages including the SPIN,
and needless to say it has to be suitable for beginners. No Fourier transforms.

Harprit.

Comments

  • tmaynardtmaynard Posts: 27
    edited 2010-06-28 21:34
    Harprit said...
    I've decided to put down some of the ideas that occurred to me as I was
    investigating PASM as suitable for projects for beginners. Core techniques that
    beginners need to understand. Basic stuff.
    Take a look at the Propeller Education Kit manual -- it's full of fun and interesting projects, and you wouldn't want to duplicate any of them.
    http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=617192

    Servos, LCD and 7-segment displays, frequency counter, TV/VGA interface, mouse/joystick input ... or just about any one part of a much more complex overall project. Any widget is going to involve one or more of these.

    Tom.
  • HarpritHarprit Posts: 539
    edited 2010-06-28 23:55
    Tom

    I am really eager not to read the PEK manual so that my approach can be different from what is in the PEK. Not much sense in
    repeating what they did. Only a fresh approach will provide another way to look at the problems. I agree that I will be using the
    same hardware but hope to provide another way of looking at it with the software.

    Beginners need a really simple introduction. Bare bones stuff.

    Pretty much the same reason that I don't want to post my personal list right away. Lets let everyone's imagination be free at this
    stage.

    Thanks for taking the time to response

    Harprit
  • JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 9,209
    edited 2010-06-29 01:31
    There will always be overlaps and I don't think you should worry about it. As different chef's will prepare the same recipe differently, so too will different code writers taking on the same application. In my opinion it is in the readers' benefit to be exposed to as many "chefs" as possible.

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    Jon McPhalen
    Hollywood, CA
  • HarpritHarprit Posts: 539
    edited 2010-06-29 01:36
    JON

    I·could not agree more. Thanks.

    H
  • JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 9,209
    edited 2010-06-29 01:56
    Good, because I'm working on my own materials and I'm sure somebody will say, "Hey, that kind of project was in so-an-so's book!" tongue.gif

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    Jon McPhalen
    Hollywood, CA
  • jazzedjazzed Posts: 11,803
    edited 2010-06-29 02:44
    Look at every item in the Parallax store accessories, components, and sensors section and think about what can be done with one or more of each item. If nothing else the material would be good marketing and generate more sales for Parallax.

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    Propeller Pages: Propeller JVM
  • HarpritHarprit Posts: 539
    edited 2010-06-29 13:58
    I do plan to look at all the sensors but will exclude the more esoteric ones like the
    gas sensors.

    Thanks
    Harprit.
  • bill190bill190 Posts: 769
    edited 2010-06-29 17:32
    Might want to poke around on other forums like sparkfun and see what people are commonly trying to do.

    Seems to me I see a lot of posts like: I don't know a thing about microcontrollers, but want to connect this display, how do I do it?

    Or: I want to connect these relays to turn something on/off and have never done anything with microcontrollers before...

    Then I have a couple of friends who like basic "blinky LEDs". Making say 6 of them strobe in a pattern back and forth. Then adding tones as they blink. Maybe pitch gets higher as it progresses from one LED to another or whatever.

    And on the Basic Stamp forum, we are discussing 3 in one LEDs [noparse][[/noparse]red, blue, green] and possibly being able to blend the colors to make different colors? I've not tried that, but sounds like fun!

    Then I saw a post elsewhere which had the following link. This company (or whatever?) has a package of code (I guess free?) which makes various products easy to interface with PIC microcontrollers (or so they say). But perhaps you could do something similar with the Propeller? Find a certain companies products which people seem to want to interface to other microcontrollers, then provide the code and diagrams to interface these to the Propeller. Then perhaps your book would be mentioned by the companies selling those products? Then more people would buy the Propeller. Then more people would buy your book. -> Synergy! Here is that site...

    http://www.embeddedadventures.com/pages/p/Tutorials/id/29
  • bill190bill190 Posts: 769
    edited 2010-06-29 17:52
    P.S. Might want to use the word "microcontroller" in the title, then as·frequently as possible use the words "Propeller microcontroller" in any page describing your book.

    The purpose of this would be to attract people who are searching the internet for microcontroller information and would not know what a Propeller microcontroller is. And we all know here what a Propeller microcontroller is, but other people do not know what a Propeller microcontroller is.

    So in the above text I've mentioned the word microcontroller about 6 times. A search engine would pick that up as being quite relevant for a search using the word microcontroller...
  • heaterheater Posts: 3,370
    edited 2010-06-29 18:10
    Just for fun I typed "microcontroller" into Google. The first two pages of results are full of:

    PIC
    uCLinux
    Microchip (PIC again)
    Arduino
    8051
    AVR
    STM

    I'm kind of surprised that "Arduino" even appears on the list.

    No idea what this means but perhaps if, as bill190, says we always use the term "Propeller microcontroller" then the Prop may one day even appear on first two pages.

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    For me, the past is not over yet.
  • bill190bill190 Posts: 769
    edited 2010-06-29 18:30
    You might want to read about how search engines work. Quite interesting.

    I'm not advocating spamming which is listing every word in the dictionary, however you can be clever and include common search terms in your page.

    And the more different unique words on one page, then the more·the page·will pop up for various searches.

    For example you might want to discuss how the Propeller microcontroller is not like the Pic microcontroller and not like an Intel microprocessor.... etc.

    Then you have the words Pic, Intel, and microprocessor on the page as well!burger.gif

    Advanced sneakiness is to provide maybe 6 or so alternate language pages with translations...

    Microcontroller...

    Italian = microcontrollore

    Spanish = microcontrolador

    French = microcontrôleur

    etc...

    And then provide links from those pages to the english language page. Many people in Europe speak several different languages.
  • bdickensbdickens Posts: 110
    edited 2010-07-01 01:06
    I would have taken a similar approach to your book. Smaller "engine" code that builds to a set of bigger projects.
    1) Simple speedometer
    2) Battery Monitor
    3) Reading a compass
    4) Stopwatch
    5) Pedometer
    6) Solar Tracker
    7) Infrared Thermometer for Grill
    8) Universal remote
    9) Simple Database Engine
    10) Quick Read Thermometer
    11) Watering can monitor


    Then build some more complex projects using them


    Weather station (1,10,6,3,9)
    Monitoring your pool (or your aquarium) (1,10,11,9)
    Waldo (you do it, the robot does it) - Tethered, XB, Infrared
    Alternate Energy Monitor (1,2,4,6,9,10,11)
    Electric Motorcycle (small) controller (1,2,5,9)
  • John KauffmanJohn Kauffman Posts: 653
    edited 2010-09-15 11:09
    I would make one of the first projects in the book an interface with the Parallax LCD App Mod (Item code 29121). It only costs $15 and has been well documented over several years. As the kick-off project, the user then gets a means of input and output for all of the rest of the projects in your text. I see its use in almost every one of the other suggestions.

    I would suggest the project starts with level one; receive two inputs: a value and a display format (Hex, DEC2, DEC5, DEC leading zero, BIN, etc.). The project does what is needed to put that value on the screen with that format. Don't forget to support strings.

    Level two would be to provide several values and formats and have them displayed on different lines or areas of the screen.

    And then to finish off with level three, make a menu system that uses prompts and button presses to run several dummy Procs.

    Let me know if you need an opinion on the outline, objectives, explanations, etc. or a tester. John at kauffmans dot org
  • Capt. QuirkCapt. Quirk Posts: 872
    edited 2010-09-15 13:13
    Harprit wrote: »
    I've decided to put down some of the ideas that occurred to me as I was
    investigating PASM as suitable for projects for beginners. Core techniques that
    beginners need to understand. Basic stuff.

    Maybe a bit late, but: In order to better understand PASM functionality, using the BS2 keywords and converting them to PASM snipets would be great. Perhaps it would complete your last 40 projects.
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2010-09-15 16:29
    Harprit

    Give me a fish, and I will have food for a day.
    Teach me to fish, and I will have a lifetime of food.

    Give me a Propeller application and I will have only one.
    Teach me to program SPIN and I will have thousands.

    Humanoido
  • ElectricAyeElectricAye Posts: 4,561
    edited 2010-09-15 17:00
    Harprit wrote: »
    I've decided to put down some of the ideas that occurred to me as I was
    investigating PASM as suitable for projects for beginners. Core techniques that
    beginners need to understand. Basic stuff....What kind of projects are you interested in.?...

    I haven't yet learned PASM, but I am motivated to learn it because I can get much greater speed than with SPIN. Soon, I will need to connect a sensor to a circuit that must read the sensor, make a decision, and perform a function all on the order of 100 microseconds. I think maybe it's possible in PASM but I doubt it could be done in SPIN. So an example of how PASM can work its high-speed magic would be very useful. Such examples would illustrate why anyone would want to learn PASM at all.

    thanks!
  • $WMc%$WMc% Posts: 1,884
    edited 2010-09-15 17:15
    Humanoido wrote: »
    Harprit

    Give me a fish, and I will have food for a day.
    Teach me to fish, and I will have a lifetime of food.

    Give me a Propeller application and I will have only one.
    Teach me to program SPIN and I will have thousands.

    Humanoido
    '
    I couldn't have said it better Humanoido!
    '
    Theirs so many Programming lingo's now for the Prop. ,That I think we can all be happy!!!!
    '
  • $WMc%$WMc% Posts: 1,884
    edited 2010-09-15 18:03
    Harprit wrote: »
    I've decided to put down some of the ideas that occurred to me as I was
    investigating PASM as suitable for projects for beginners. Core techniques that
    beginners need to understand. Basic stuff.

    I made a list and so far it has about 60 items in it. I don't want to tell you
    what is on the list just yet so that I do not bias your thinking but I will post it when I
    have 100 projects. In the mean time I am soliciting ideas from the
    beginners who read this forum. What kind of projects are you interested in.?
    Each project has to be covered in two or three pages including the SPIN,
    and needless to say it has to be suitable for beginners. No Fourier transforms.

    Harprit.
    '
    Harpin GPS would be a good one. I have lost my PropHog mower in the back 40acers of my property. I heard the motor run out of gas,Its now dark and I don't have any IR LEDs to light the way to Bring the PropHog home.The picture is solid black. I'll have to wait till tomorrow to bring it back home for refueling.
    '
    Another neat code would be one for the liquid level detector.This is the code I forgot to down load to the Prop. that I should have before I started cutting grass in the back forty!.
    '
    Great Idea, I hope You stick with it !!!!
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