The last fabrication technique we learned in this course involved designing PCBs. The heart of the PCB we designed was an ATtiny1614 microcontroller. The board was intended to have functionality ideally related to our final project.
Our journey across different digital fabrication techniques continues with electronics production. Specifically, we focused on milling a PCB from a copper sheet. We were provided with schematics for an FT230X-based board that serves a dual purpose: it functions as a UPDI 3-pin programmer and, when used in USB to serial converter mode, it offers similar functionality to an FTDI cable. In UPDI mode, it can be used to program a UPDI target using serial communication.
Today, we delved into the realm of microcontrollers, specifically focusing on embedded programming. Our tool of choice was TinkerCAD, where we virtually programmed an Arduino to perform various tasks.
This week we learned more about programming microcontrollers, or rather Input/Output Devices in particular. There are digital and analog input devices. Most microcontrollers have a built-in Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) that converts analog signals into digital signals.