beginner teacher

crimble

New Member
I am teaching an engineering diploma course and there is an electronics module. The standard electronics I am comfortable with but I have never used pics before.

i have downloaded lots of software. The advice I need is:

1. What type of chip should I start with?
2. What basic hardware pack for programming the chip do I need?
3. How many of these may be useful for a class of 15?

I am sure there are highly relevant questions I have not asked due to my complete ignorance so if you have the answers to these too I would obviously be extremely grateful.
 

Michael 2727

Senior Member
Hi and welcome to the forum.

I'd go with the 08M chip for starters, you can do quite a lot with it for a small 8 pin chip.
And the Schools Experimenter PCB AXE092 from memory, is a good starter board.
You also need a download cable RS232 and or the USB to RS232 converter if your PCs
only have USB ports.

Get to it you will have a lot of fun ~ ;o)
 

manuka

Senior Member
Crimble: Welcome-where are you in UK? Are you a beginner teacher or teacher of beginners? Your plea reminds a ~2002 quest that lead to my PICAXE discovery!. In spite of more recent PICAXE offerings (there are now ~17),I also highly recommend the 08M, as it's still "the little chip that could". Students LOVE THEM - your main problem may well be that they'll then not what to bother themselves with more tedious discrete, logic and "555" style approaches.

Naturally the boring sides of your need should first be addressed. These may well be delivery time, budgets, class materials,technical help, course assessments, theory/practical class nature, facilities, and student prior skill level & motivation. Your institution may feel PICAXEs are "too easy" & best suited for younger students as well,and issues may arise regarding using more professional micros. Any one of these aspects may influence just how you go about things,although (if you've time) perhaps check an approach I pondered ~2005..

Us down under colonials are strong on DIY breadboarding evaluation,as aside from easing the need for soldering skills & facilities they speed educational circuit tweaking & reassembly. You may want to email/PM (private message) me directly for 1:1 insights regarding cost & time effective approaches. Stan.
 
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westaust55

Moderator
I am teaching an engineering diploma course and there is an electronics module. The standard electronics I am comfortable with but I have never used pics before.

i have downloaded lots of software. The advice I need is:

1. What type of chip should I start with?
2. What basic hardware pack for programming the chip do I need?
3. How many of these may be useful for a class of 15?
Welcome to the PICAXE forum.

Firstly you need to understand some differences.

a PIC is a microcontroller chip produced by Microchip. This is a straight/raw chip with no program within as purchased. You need to spend more then on a PIC programmer and unless working in assembler you need to purchase a compiler. This forum does not in the main cover straight PIC chips although some forum members here do also use them and can pint you in the right directions.

a PICAXE chip as produced by Revolution Education who operate this forum are PIC chips intowhich Rev Ed has programmed a permanent firmware program with includes a program loader and a BASIC interpreter.
With a PICAXE chip you only need a USB (or serial) to stereo typer connector cable which Rev Ed sell and the Rev Ed freely downloadable Programming Editor software. The forum is predominantly for the PICAXE chips

Can you indicate which chip, that is PIC or PICAXE you are intending to use.

If it is the PICAXE, which IMHO is the way to go, then the advise from Michael and manuka is a starting point
 

Rickharris

Senior Member
08m A small project board

gives you everything you need except for a small bread board and a few components - We mounted the entire thing on a bit of MDF with the bread board (glue gun) connecting solid core wires to the PCB to connect to the Bread board.

A few resistors, LEDs, Pizeo sounders completed the basic set up. I was lucky into every student had access to a PC so did this individually as the boards are reusable so over a year or two the cost is very low per student.

I extracted the essential information from the manuals - How to set up and use the system and the 7 or 8 main commands that were needed to get going.

High, Low, If then, Goto, gosub, Wait,pause,

With these you can do most things.
 

manuka

Senior Member
K: Sorry I'd not responded earlier to your recent school posting, & glad things seem to be rolling. Did you find any "snap connector" kits eventually? A so called Brainbox Pathfinder ( ~ US$50) has even been recently released here in NZ, and it offers IR robotic control & even simple machine vision. Naturally I intend waving my PICAXE wand over it sometime. Stan.
 

Attachments

Michael 2727

Senior Member
And I almost forgot the most important thing of all -
PICAXE Manual1, 2 and 3 .PDF Files.
These 3 documents are the Picaxe Bibles, they will
answer almost 99% of what you need to know about Picaxe.
What you can't find in there will probably be in here, "Search" works,
well sometimes it does ~ ;o)
 

Technical

Technical Support
Staff member
A large number of schools/colleges already use the PICAXE system for the teaching the electronics module of engineering diploma.

The two most popular modules for this course are the tutorial board (AXE050) and the T4 training module (AXE056). You ideally need a board and AXE027 download cable per computer - the cable is included in these packs:
www.techsupplies.co.uk/axe050
www.techsupplies.co.uk/axe056

You can select the free (BASIC) Programming Editor software as most 'hobbyists' on this forum use, or the Logicator flowcharting software that most schools use.

A product also developed by a number of companies (including Rev-Ed) specifically for the Diploma course is the FLEXY1:
http://www.inspire-technologies.co.uk/
 

crimble

New Member
sorry for not acknowledging yoiur replies. Other forums I subscribe to notify me of posts by email. I have only just checked this and your advice has been helpful and appreciated.
 
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