WEEK 7: Embedded Programming

Right after I made my board in electronics design week I dropped it in front of Starbucks in Harvard Square, which is literally the busiest spot in the the square. The board stayed relatively intact but predictably it was a little damaged and not all the connections survived. When I tried to run my program with my board I got a lot of AVRDUDE errors, messages saying the port I assigned was incorrect, and also messages saying there was no usb detected.
 
There was a lot of troubleshooting because there were 3 main variable problem sources: the code, the board, and my computer which is on its last leg. Originally I assumed there was something wrong with my code and I had assigned the wrong pin. After getting frustrated with code that would assemble without a problem and also a laptop that intermittently lost clicking function, I switched to the desktop in the lab. Lastly, when I was using a functioning computer and accurate sample code off the internet, I switched to using one of the circuit boards in the lab. Also, I didn't realize originally that I needed to download the ATtiny library into the Arduino environment that I used and that I needed to look up corresponding pins


I used arduino publicly available code that I knew worked ot start off and then built up from there. My original code turned the LED on. Then I added a delay and turn low function to make it blink. Lastly I changed the code to make the push button turn off the LED while the button is pressed. I had a slow start with this because I had completely forgotten how to work Arduino but once I got the board working it all started coming back to me. I also found old program I wrote for my intro EE class a few years ago, which was fun.