Nano Coding Companion (NCC) (developed in Spring 2022)

Our initial session justifiably begins with an emphasis on tips and techniques for writing GREAT code. The months (years?) of software development ahead of you are best served by first acquainting yourself with fundamental coding concepts applicable to ALL software contexts. At the very least, the size of the DER space occupied by your project report's Code Section will be optimized.

The motivational brilliance behind the development of the Arduino hardware Platforms included providing artists with simple, seamless access to the power of electronics based on the (AVR) microcontroller. The Nano is one such development board that breaks out the functionality of the AVR ATmega328p to a breadboard-compatible form factor. Click on the image to the right of Version 3 and acquaint yourself with as many of its resources as possible, for now. Take your ABRA Nano from your kit and compare your findings.

To place an emphasis squarely on software from the outset of our course, a Nano-compatible breadboard appliance was developed in the Spring of 2022 for ICS3U ACES to sharpen their coding skills. After inserting the Nano into your breadboard, position your Nano Coding Companion PCB over top of the Nano. As a 'breadboard appliance' no additional supporting wiring is required to explore the basic coding concepts below of data types, input/output, loops, decisions, modularity, efficiency and documentation. On the output side, the NCC breaks out 16 of the ATmega328p's digital pins (0-15) to blue SMT 0805 LEDs. For input, a Bourns SMT 5 kΩ Trimpot (JLCPCB Part #C124626) provides variable voltage into A2. For the exercises to follow on this page the Nano is best programmed with your Sparkfun AVR Pocket Programmer.

Finally, you may wish to add these two statements at the start of your setup() function: DDRD = 255; PORTD = 0;

Additional Coding Skill Development: Towards Better Code

3. Bars. Achieve the following result on your NCC.

4. Bars Decreasing. Achieve the following result on your NCC. For your first iteration, hard code the delay between frames to be 1 s. After successful completion if this first interval, allow the user to control the speed of animation through the manipulation of the onboard pot.

Reference: Bitwise Operators

5. Random. Achieve the following result on your NCC.

6. Fade In. The pins marked with green dots in the Nano image above support (limited) PWM through the use of the analogWrite(pin, duty) function. Achieve the following result on your NCC.

7. Digital In/Digital Out. Achieve the following result on your NCC by performing a digital read on your pot.

8. Analog In/Digital Out. Achieve the following result on your NCC by performing an analog read on your pot. Once copleted and after running various tests, comment on the analog reading threshold between digital LOW and HIGH.

10. uint16_t. Echo the value of a uint16_t variable in which SET bits appear as LEDs on (CLEAR bits are off). For example, for all Trekkies out there, the value 0x1701 on your NCC would appear as shown below.

Reference: Integer Constants

11. EEPROM. Successful completion of the previous uint16_t exercise opens the door to this insightful and creative project. (Note: You will need your standard cable (AVR ISP) to complete this exercise. Your AVR Pocket Programmer appears incapable of accessing EEPROM correctly)

Your AVR MCU has three memories: Program Flash, SRAM and EEPROM. The first and last are non-volatile meaning their contents are preserved even when the power is disconnected. In this exercise you are asked to write, read, and display the contents of EEPROM as an animation.

To get you started, I have prepared a sketch to populate EEPROM with the data for the animation. Download and review the sketch, EEPROMWrite.ino, before uploading it to your Nano. Launch the Serial Monotor and compare the output to the C code itself. By looking at the array data, you may be able to imagine what the animation will look like when you finally finish the EEPROMReadandDisplay.ino code that will continually play the animation on your Nano Coding Companion!

The next two exercises focus your attention on the similarities, differences, and subtleties of C++'s logical and bitwise operators.
Complete list of C++ Operator Precedence

12. Complement. The inverse of a bit is also referred to as its complement. Thus, the complement of 0 is 1 and the complement of 1 is 0. In terms of logic gates, this is the result of applying the NOT operator. Save the previous exercise to a project named Complement and adapt it to achieve the animation below.

13. Operators: Logical vs Bitwise. After consideration of class discussions on the matter and reviewing the operators and their relative order of precedence (above), predict the value of the result variable for each expression below. Run and confirm your predictions on your NCC.

void setup() {
//set first 16 digital pins to output...
for (uint16_t pin = 0; pin < 16; pin++)
pinMode(pin, OUTPUT);

uint16_t a = 7 << 13;
uint16_t b = 192 >> 3;
uint8_t c = 16;

uint16_t result;
result = a;
// result = b;
// result = a | b | c;
// result = a | b & c;
// result = a || b && c;
// result = ~a;
// result = !a;
// result = !!a;

// provide LED representation of word-size data
displayWord(result);
}


14. CD4017. Remember your Counting Circuit from last year? The clock signal from the NGO was presented to the 4017 Decade Counter, resulting in this effect. In this exercise recreate the 4017 behaviour on your NCC as suggested in the animation below....

15. Breathing LEDs. The brightness of an LED is dependent on current. This feature is easily manipulated in hardware by changing the size of the series resistor. Another hardware design to affect current changes is presented in the circuit (below, right, that appeared in your Grade 10 DC Circuits workbook. This application of the Analog Oscillator (aka Astable Multivibrator) circuit emulates a 'breathing' cycle. The square wave(ish)' output of the oscillator supports the charge/discharge action of an RC pair that drives the base pin of an NPN transistor to control current, resulting in the fading in and out of an LED. This year, we explore a similar software-based simulation on the NCC.

Breathing LED Circuit PWM: Duty Cycle

First off, an alternatve to current-controlled LED brightness is to exploit the human eye's persistence of vision characteristic. If an LED is turned on and off repeatedly our eyes will interpret brightness levels in direct proportion to the on/off time ratio. More precisely, in the world of digital signals, it is the ratio of ON time to the total of ON and OFF time (period) that is the key. This is referred to as the duty cycle. For example, if an LED was turned ON for 9 ms and OFF for 1 ms, repeatedly (90% duty cycle), the human eye would perceive the LED to be brighter than if it was ON for only 1 ms and OFF for 9 ms (10% duty cycle).

As you are now aware from earlier exercises, the ATmega328P (Nano and UNO) offers 6 pins capable of Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) in which a square wave of fixed frequency can be easily produced through the use of Arduino C's analogWrite(pin, duty); function. With a little more thinking it should be apparent that any MCU digital I/O pin can produce a square wave of varying duty cycle AND frequency simply by turning them ON and OFF for various durations.

Develop the sketch Breathing.ino that results in ALL 16 LEDs fading in and out, in unison, at a rate that reflects human breathing, similar to the animation below.

16. Serial Input. Earlier NCC exercises (Analog In/Digital Out, Digital In/Digital Out) supported user control over the NCC's output. This third example introduces you to a more versatile option for digital input through the use of the Arduino's Serial Monitor.

Develop the sketch SerialInput.ino that requests the number of consecutive NCC LEDs to be turned on (through the Serial Monitor) from the user as shown below, before lighting them.

Question. What steps must be undertaken to get this to function correctly and why?