[McHUG] Mason Dixon Hamfest Seminar

[n3sb at qis.net]

Hi Rich;

I like your idea! The Arduino is the way to go for a general purpose
microcontroller, especially since the boards are cheap and widely available in
a bunch of different configurations (yet compatible with each other) The
programming environment is free, and runs on Macs and Linux, as well as PCs.
There's a lot of documentation, projects, and help available on the internet.

I've got a board fired up right now, and hope to have something interesting to
display at the seminar.

73; Steve, N3SB

Quoting Rich Mitchell <geobra at att.net>:

> McHUGgers,
> 
> We've been real quiet for real long - BUT the Mason Dixon Hamfest at the end
> of the month is featuring a seminar entitled "Microcontrollers and Ham
> Radio".  That's a good time for us to get rolling again.  My thinking is that
> the seminar should focus on one microcontroller and one way of programming it
> and ideas for using it in ham radio.  That way participants could take away
> something that they could get up and running easily, rather than just general
> ideas about microcontrollers.  We could focus on Freeduino hardware and the
> Arduino IDE.  The outline might look something like this.
> 
> A. Hardware Atmel Atmega 168
>    * Barebones Board kit Rev 4
>    * Serial adapter P4
>    * USB cable
>    * Really Barebones Board kit 
> 
> B. Software:  Arduino 0012 IDE
>    * programming - how to program blink - actually do it before their eyes.
>    * libraries - how to use other people's code - actually do it before their
> eyes.
>    * mention possibilities with C and assember.
> 
> C. Ham Projects
> 
> Take away:  CD with Arduino 0012 IDE and other PDFs from the World Famous
> Index of Arduino & Freeduino Knowledge.
> 
> Available to buy:  If we buy in bulk we could make available a Barebones
> Board kit and P4 serial adapter for about $14.  With the CD all someone would
> need (other than soldering equipment) would be a serial cable, some type of
> breadboard and of course a computer.
> 
> How do you guys think that may work as a seminar?  If you have done any ham
> related projects, bring them in.  We certainly could show them an interesting
> PICAXE related ham project. Any thoughts and ideas on any of this would be
> appreciated.
> 
> Rich
> --
> McHUG - Physical Computing ;) 
> MicroController Ham User Group