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Any recommendation for project?

AndreeU17

Apr 23, 2014
42
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Apr 23, 2014
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42
I'm currently studying in class Digital Fundamentals as well as Integrated Circuits.
I've built a few amplifiers as well as repaired many electronic equipments. So i have more or less a strong knowledge in electronics. What could i build or what project would you guys suggest me to build? I personally was thinking of maybe building my own USB device that interacts with a computer as if it was a Keyboard rather than a Storage media device. Now i'm sure that is a bit complicated but its not a project im expecting to finish tomorrow. I'm hoping to have it prolong itself for multiple months, helping me learn and research new stuff. If you guys have any resourceful links i'd appreciate it, but apart from that what would you guys recommend?
 

Fish4Fun

So long, and Thanks for all the Fish!
Aug 27, 2013
481
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Aug 27, 2013
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481
As far as a "virtual" USB keyboard goes that could be a fairly trivial project or a real whopper depending on how you decide to approach it. On the one hand it would be fairly trivial to use a standard USB to Serial Port interface and have a uController act as your keyboard....on the other hand attempting to build a USB compliant device from the ground up could easily occupy you through grad school if you choose to write all of the source code from scratch.

For a purely educational project involving multiple platforms and multiple communications protocols you might consider creating a "round-robin" communications network where you send keystrokes from your PC to a uC via standard serial comm then have the uC Tx the keystrokes to a second uC via another communications protocol, say I2C then have the second uC send the same keystrokes to a third uC via yet another communications protocol, perhaps TWI and then have the third uC return the keystrokes to the first uC via a forth communications protocol, perhaps ISO-7816 and then have the first uC return the message to a second PC that in turn returns the keystrokes via IP to the first PC. While this is a pointless exercise from many perspectives it has the potential to be a great demonstration of the strengths/weaknesses of various communications protocols and could easily be designed to demonstrate multiple platform communications....it could be expanded to as many "hops" as you like, perhaps even fiber-optic, IR remote and wireless to name a few....you might even incorporate encryption between one or more hops...the possibilities for a "purely educational" project are virtually limitless.....and you could "start small" with a PC and perhaps an Arduino or two and "expand the network" over time....

Just a thought....

Fish
 

TheZink

Oct 25, 2014
12
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Oct 25, 2014
Messages
12
I like the way you put that out there... It is a very good exercise in communications and timing, error assumptions , etc. Just setting up my arduino was a bit of a challenge , and getting it to do anything was even more difficult...

The only thing I would add to the above project , would be to span different chipsets/languages . Maybe do some AT with assembly , an msp430 with the IDE , a pic chip with some C or something , etc.

I too am looking for little things to learn intricacies and such , but having a hard time. I have decided on a Solar option , lipo pack , that would be a portable charge pack for cell phone , ecig , etc . But with intentional interface to a breadboard that will be contained in a small hobby box...

-j
 
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