And yes. The date is wrong in the picture above. One of my kids has already removed May 13 to read the joke on the backside..

The Digilent / Texas Instruments Analog Shield

Loads of fun to be had! This educational board has analog goodies on it.

And since my (not really mine) turntable is all analog, I feel that there's a good mix in the making.

My dream is to build something cool with this board mounted on the Atmel SAMA5D4 Xplained Ultra.

Whatever that may be.

It is possible that the end result has little relation to my submitted idea, but I'll take that as a plus .

Why this scope creep?

In my work life, I steer away from scope creep as much as I can. But this is not work.

In this design contest, I want to have plain fun. But I also want to do something relevant.

I've been struggling to find good use for the SAMA5D4. I know it's a great platform. And I had great plans for it.

But I also realize that I won't fully tame it within the timelines for this project. I won't be able to use it to its full capacity.

But I got myself to some level. I can compile my own c++ linux code.

My first idea after I realized my skill gap with the board was to replicate the light organ and servo motor part of my design on the SAMA5D4.

But that's sad, isn't it? If the only thing you can do with the Xplained Ultra is replicating something that the Arduino UNO with an ATMEL ATMega does just fine?

And that's where the Analog Shield comes in handy. It allows me to do something new.

And to learn something new, and to get a purpose for the SAMA5D4.

It's not going to be rocket science, but a part of my personal (publicly shared ) learning track.

What's on the Shield

It's a mix of Analog to Digital, Digital to Analog, and power supply circuits.

I'm going to focus on the ADC first. It's a 16 bit converter with four channels. And it supports SPI.

I'll do 'something' with my audio signal and that ADC converter.

If I have success, I'll have a look at the DAC. That one is also 16 bit with 4 channels.

At the moment I have no idea for the two power supplies. Both can go positive and negative.

One is fixed +/- 5V. The other one is variable +/-7.5V.

1. Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) Header

2. Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) Header

3. Power Header

4. Voltage Select Jumper

5. Variable Voltage Potentiometer

The only promise I make at this point is that I'll do my best to make something interesting out of it. And that I'll share success + failure on the blog.