The Propeller Education Kit is something you assemble yourself in a series of teaching experiments. You build everything on the included solderless breadboards, starting with the power supply. The Activity Board is an actual finished product, no assembly required other than smaller circuits you may want to add on the little breadboard. For something ready to go out of the package, where you can jump right into the programming part, the Activity Board is a good choice. If you like to assemble circuits and learn how all the individual parts work together, then go with the Propeller Education Kit.
Thanks for explaining the hardware difference RDL2004.
The tutorials are quite different as well. The Propeller Education Kit Labs has a printed book. It takes you through learning Spin-language programming. It keeps you close to the architecture, and you will frequently write code to start routines running in the Propeller chip's cores (also called cogs). This book was designed for upper university lab courses, and its chapters are meant to be done in order.
The tutorials for the Propeller Activity Board are written in C language. They include custom libraries and example code that launch the Propeller chip's cores automatically. The tutorials aim for high school or lower college grade level. They are designed more "a la carte" where once you do the setup and programming introduction, you can pick and choose circuit and device tutorials as you need them for your project.
Thanks for explaining the hardware difference RDL2004.
The tutorials are quite different as well. The Propeller Education Kit Labs has a printed book. It takes you through learning Spin-language programming. It keeps you close to the architecture, and you will frequently write code to start routines running in the Propeller chip's cores (also called cogs). This book was designed for upper university lab courses, and its chapters are meant to be done in order.
The tutorials for the Propeller Activity Board are written in C language. They include custom libraries and example code that launch the Propeller chip's cores automatically. The tutorials aim for high school or lower college grade level. They are designed more "a la carte" where once you do the setup and programming introduction, you can pick and choose circuit and device tutorials as you need them for your project.
Steph,
Thanks for the explanation...I had the same question earlier.
Might I suggest that a FAQ discussing the differences of ALL Parallax boards be made and posted so it is easily found.
It took over an hour before I could come up with the info I needed...it was not easily found.
This type of question has been asked again and again...a strong indicator that someone needs to make the info more visible and clear.
It is just this type of info that potential customers look for to decide whether to use a Parallax product or its competitors..like the Arduino.
hapalua
Posts: 149
Comments
The tutorials are quite different as well. The Propeller Education Kit Labs has a printed book. It takes you through learning Spin-language programming. It keeps you close to the architecture, and you will frequently write code to start routines running in the Propeller chip's cores (also called cogs). This book was designed for upper university lab courses, and its chapters are meant to be done in order.
The tutorials for the Propeller Activity Board are written in C language. They include custom libraries and example code that launch the Propeller chip's cores automatically. The tutorials aim for high school or lower college grade level. They are designed more "a la carte" where once you do the setup and programming introduction, you can pick and choose circuit and device tutorials as you need them for your project.
Steph,
Thanks for the explanation...I had the same question earlier.
Might I suggest that a FAQ discussing the differences of ALL Parallax boards be made and posted so it is easily found.
It took over an hour before I could come up with the info I needed...it was not easily found.
This type of question has been asked again and again...a strong indicator that someone needs to make the info more visible and clear.
It is just this type of info that potential customers look for to decide whether to use a Parallax product or its competitors..like the Arduino.