HTMAA 3024 FRS

Group Assignment

To put it simply: as part of our group work, we got hands-on experience with a range of microcontrollers—like the ATTINY from the AVR8 family and SAMD, RP2040, and ESP32 from the ARM32 family. We compared these to see which one best met our project needs, taking into account factors such as power consumption, processing speed, and peripheral compatibility.

Tested different microcontrollers: RP2040, ESP32, ATTiny, and SAMD.
RP2040 has a built-in bootloader, making it easy to flash.
ESP32 supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, good for IoT.
ATTiny is low-power and simple, ideal for small applications.
Seeed Studio boards integrate essential components, simplifying use.
Used Arduino IDE to install toolchains for various microcontrollers.
Some devices use UF2 bootloading for easy drag-and-drop programming.
Explored MicroPython for interactive programming and debugging.

Solidworks design — Here I am during the group assignment

Week 3: Embedded Programming

This week, we delved into embedded programming to interact with local input/output devices and explore both wired and wireless communication. In my projects, I used a microcontroller to display information on an LCD screen and toggle between modes using a simple button.

Check out the video below to see my microcontroller in action:

And here’s a closer look at the code I developed. This snippet handles toggling between a welcome message and a fire animation when the button is pressed.


#include 
#include 

#define BTN_PIN 5
#define TFT_DC 2
#define TFT_CS 15

Adafruit_ILI9341 tft = Adafruit_ILI9341(TFT_CS, TFT_DC);

bool lastButtonState = HIGH;
bool currentMessageInfo = true;

void displayMessage(const char* message, uint16_t color) {
    tft.fillScreen(ILI9341_BLACK);
    tft.setCursor(0, 0);
    tft.setTextColor(color);
    tft.setTextSize(2);
    tft.println(message);
}

void displayFireArt() {
    tft.fillScreen(ILI9341_BLACK);
    tft.setCursor(0, 0);
    tft.setTextColor(ILI9341_RED);
    tft.setTextSize(1);
    tft.println("  🔥 Fire Animation 🔥 ");
}

void setup() {
    pinMode(BTN_PIN, INPUT_PULLUP);
    tft.begin();
    tft.setRotation(1);
    displayMessage("Welcome to Embedded Programming", ILI9341_WHITE);
}

void loop() {
    bool buttonState = digitalRead(BTN_PIN);
    if (buttonState != lastButtonState) {
        lastButtonState = buttonState;
        if (buttonState == LOW) {
            if (currentMessageInfo) {
                displayFireArt();
                currentMessageInfo = false;
            }
        } else {
            if (!currentMessageInfo) {
                displayMessage("Welcome to Embedded Programming", ILI9341_WHITE);
                currentMessageInfo = true;
            }
        }
    }
    delay(50);
}

Assignment:

Demonstrate and compare the toolchains and development workflows for available embedded architectures ✓

Browse through the data sheet for your microcontroller ✓
Write a program for a microcontroller, simulate its operation, and interact with local input/output devices ✓
Communicate with remote wired or wireless connections ✓

Test it on a development board
Try different languages or development environments