Brads Electronic Projects Forum

I bought the book "Make: Electronics" (Learning by Discovery) by Charles Platt. I bought it used and in good conditionon Amazon instead of paying full price. This book shows pictures of different components and how to use them in both theory and experiments. It is about 331 pages.

Microchip Pic isn't mentioned.

That's the book a brought a few months ago, interesting book and worth getting if your new to electronics

Always good to have some electronics books in the home library!

I always believed that Microchip is missing out on a lot by not trying to appeal to the beginner community. After all, who are the people that are going to buy your product in the future? They have gotten better over the last few years but still need to work on that part of the community.

Years ago (1995 or so) when I first wanted to learn microcontrollers I picked up a PicKit. It came with 3 or 4 text books and manuals (BIG with lot's of pages). I even attended a seminar to see if I could learn something. It was pretty much a waste of money for me because everything was so technical that I lost interest very fast! You had to have a certain level of assembly knowledge to even understand what was going on. I managed to make a light blink on the board and then I was over it.

It wasn't until years later when I stumbled across Brad's assembly programming tutorials that I got excited about microcontrollers again. I thought, why couldn't Microchip have found a way to explain it like that so a complete beginner could grasp what was going on?

Anyhow, sorry about the rant... The main reason for my post was to know if any of you have seen SCRATCH? It's an on line programming tool for kids to get them to understand the fundamentals of programming (developing algorithms, looping, conditional statements, variables, event handling, and so on...)

I think it's a good way to get young programmers to learn efficient coding early on. So, it's not necessarily a book but it is a good learning tool for children (it says ages 6-16).

http://www.scratch.mit.edu

http://info.scratch.mit.edu/sites/infos ... ts-v14.pdf


Stacy

You are exactly right Stacy!

Arduino did a fantastic job in that you can buy an Arduino board, plug it into a USB port load up the free software and you are away! There is even sample code their that you don't have to go searching for. It really is an excellent way for beginners to get into programming.

I have seen all over the internet that some people hate arduino because they are stupid and basic. But that is exactly what beginners are looking for!

Microchip have really, really REALLY been slow to jump on this band wagon. I am not sure why I first chose PIC's in the first place, but I am glad I did nonetheless.

Having said that, thanks for posting that link! It's fantastic not only for young kids, but really for anyone looking to try their hand at some programming.

Actually speaking of which, I have a Psion 3a little pocket computer from the early 90's and found in my garage a programming book for it. I was going to see about writing some simple programs for that old little thing

I always thought your original assembly tutorials and 8x8 game system would make a great teaching tool for a classroom type setting. If the "modules" (as you called them) were refined a little bit, written in a text book setting, and a kit was provided with all the components, it would make a great one simester class for electronic studends to learn Microchips 8 bit microcontrollers.

If Microchip were to catch on to this kind of idea, they could push a curiculum in high schools and some tech schools. I think it would pay dividends in the future because they would expose the young generation to Microchip product and since they are familiar with it, that will be the first place they turn if they become engineers later on in life.

I personally like assembly language (thanks to you) and think it is the best way to understand the inter workings of a microcontroller. Maybe I'm just an old scholl kind of person?

Stacy

I think youre right. Microchip should be getting in while they are young. Get kids interested in an easy to understand way and set them up for the future.

If you just take the time to explain each line of code and let them experiment with it. You can learn so much!

Speaking of scratch, I just received an email from Sparkfun Electronics...

https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1291?utm_ ... c-60581021

Stacy

Thanks for that Stacy! just downloaded it

That is an important thing especially when it comes to electronics its something which shouldn't be used without having awareness.Because most of the times it can be about how to use it and what is the appropriate way of maintaining it so yeah for me that is a bother.