Salt Lake City, Utah
June 23, 2018
June 23, 2018
July 27, 2018
Computers in Education
An earlier paper concerned selection of the XXXXX microcontroller for a junior level microprocessors course. The paper detailed the hardware used, the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) used, detailed a set of laboratory experiments and reported useful textbooks and manuals for instruction. The laboratory work shown followed the sequential learning model. It concentrated on the development of skills and proficiencies. The equipment remains in use in our XXXXX program at XXXXXX.
Since the paper's publishing, newer microcontrollers have become widely available that far exceed the capabilities of its microcontrollers (and their contemporaries). Because of increased bus sizes that boost memory addressing and data transfer rates, the new microcontrollers are capable of hosting an OS system. Thus, they have transitioned from hosting dedicated applications to hosting many applications. Often these devices are referred to as single board computers. Recent papers[2,3,4,5,6] reflect the influence of these new computers on work targeted for undergraduate learning experiences.
The physical product created herein was a network streaming audio player on a single board computer. The hardware platform chosen was an Odroid-C1. The board features a multicore RISC architecture ARM processor. Like other single board computers of its class, it features much RAM, as well as SD memory which acts as “disk” memory. The base unit features an abundant array of connections to the outside world, including 40 GPIO pins, four USB ports for keyboard, mouse, WiFi USB device, plus separate RJ45 Ethernet jack, plus micro-USB and micro HDMI ports. Odroid markets a platform compatible 3.2” TFT touchscreen display for use with the C1. In this project, the programmed touchscreen provides a user-friendly kiosk-like interface. The HMDI port acts as the streaming audio output port.
Project software development intentionally sought to leverage the strengths of a fast and lightweight Ubuntu Linux variant, Lubuntu. Lubuntu’s default desktop environment is LXDE, and its default window manager is Openbox. LXDE/Openbox is common to Linux distributions. QtCreator is the software Integrated Development Environment for programming, chosen for its Graphics User Interface (GUI) programming reliability. QtCreator worked seamlessly with Openbox in presenting a stable event-driven GUI to the user.
As a whole, the completed project integrates diverse software development tasks, from enabling network operations to program scripting, to work with windowing systems, to event-driven software.
This work can be of direct value to faculty designing similar student projects. By extension, the work has value to faculty who can make use of this project’s toolset.
1. XXXXXXX (XXXX, June), XXXXXXXXXXXXX ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, XXXXXXX. https://peer.asee.org/XXX
2. Mullett, G. J. (2016, June), Teaching the Internet of Things (IoT) Using Universally Available Raspberry Pi and Arduino Platforms Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.26053
3. Husseini, N. S., & Kaszubski, I. (2017, June), Incorporating the Raspberry Pi into laboratory experiments in an introductory MATLAB course Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. https://peer.asee.org/28514
4. Gilreath, J. W., & Bou-Saba, C. (2015, June), An Advanced Streaming Internet Radio Player with Raspberry Pi Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23509
5. Sobota, D., & Karlovits, S. W., & Khan, A. S. (2017, June), Senior Project Design: A Smart Pantry System Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. https://peer.asee.org/28820
6. Basu, D., & Purviance, J. S. G., & Maczka, D. K., & Brogan, D. S., & Lohani, V. K. (2015, June), Work-in-Progress: High-Frequency Environmental Monitoring Using a Raspberry Pi-Based System Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.25103
7. Vernier, M. A., & Wensing, P. M., & Morin, C. E., & Phillips, A., & Rice, B., & Wegman, K. R., & Hartle, C., & Clingan, P. A., & Kecskemety, K. M., & Freuler, R. J. (2014, June), Design of a Full-Featured Robot Controller for Use in a First-Year Robotics Design Project Paper presented at 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, Indiana. https://peer.asee.org/20260
Border, D. (2018, June), Single-board Computer Used for Network Streaming Audio Player TFT Touchscreen-based Application Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--30965
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