Improve Your Skills with a "Free" Minized Dev Board Project Contest

Thank You! Randall Scasny. I often get a really big smile when I see words like Giveaways & Free. I totally fall in love with electronic gadgets.

I am seriously learning about development boards. I really need some for my projects. As am learning about new boards and exploring them maybe MiniZED will help me in learning more about such high connectivity development boards. And maybe its just a co-incidence I have been planning a project for a week in which I needed a board capable enough to control some servos and manage some data about energy and it seems that MiniZED has the perfect size for my project and almost all the capabilities expected from a development board. And luckily the on-board sensors are a thing to rejoice for.

I have various project waiting in the list (Some are fictional that's why I have not listed everything...)

- Smart Cycle Module

Problem - Here in India the cost of a smart cycle or even a geared cycle is way too costly for a common man like me but it is a dream to own a smart cycle.

Solution - (not exactly a solution but works out in some way as a solution) A single module which can be placed on any cycle to make it smart. Not just a silly module fond on the internet but a peice of hardware module that would capture electricity for other uses and I also have an idea of placing low power Piezoelectric material under the wheel rubber. Well I have planned many low cost hardware to achieve this. But MiniZED will help me in programming different hardware which I have planned to buy.

- Anti-Hack System

Problem - Today many IoT devices can be hacked by even a kid. I seriously tried one on my own (followed some tutorials).

Solution - So I have just thought of a hardware which can probably carry IoT device network in home through a encrypted protocol (Which I will be exploring later). Well its all about pure un-hack able IoT home network.

I really don't have any cool idea as am new to exploring the depths of possibilities of achieving various problems using IoT.

In other words am an explorer of new things coming up. I don't really have a wallet of my own so cant buy any new hardware right now.

I have past experiences with Arduino and Raspberry Pi 3 b.

Sorry I mistakenly wrote so long things! I hope no one minds reading just everything!

This is a great idea for a contest. I won't be applying because I've already got a MiniZed which I bought to follow along with the original Path to Programmable. It's a great board if you're ready to jump into the Zynq world of programmable logic alongside an ARM processor. Don't expect it to be an easy ride though!

Create a wind chime that transmits the XY position of its sail as a value to a receiving station.   The receiving station (development board) converts the XY position to a midi value which in turn can be sent to the musical device  (keyboard, raspberry pi, etc.) for sound generation.

Once the proof of concept is completed, develop an application for the raspberry pi using what was learned by using the Minized Dev Board.  Freeing up the Minized Dev Board for another project.

Roughly 2 months ago I was given the chance to play for the first time with an FPGA board with the condition that I would have to blog about it. I gladly accepted and blogged about how to program the FPGA with Verilog (Learning Verilog with the Digilent Cmod S7). Even though FPGAs are quite flexible, there are many high level tasks that are better suited to microprocessors than FPGAs (the opposite is also true). So what solutions are there when one needs both technologies? One would be, to connect a microprocessor to an FPGA and have them work together, but the drawback is that communication may be slow, and PCB  space and power requirements high. A different alternative would be to use "softcores", which are softprocessors, or FPGA processor designs; this could eventually solve previously mentioned issues, but also introduce new ones: softcores consume FPGA fabric (which is expensive), and their computational performance is not on par to hardprocessors. A different approach would be to use a microprocessor and an FPGA integrated into a single package, like the Xilinx Zynq, which integrates a Cortex-A microprocessor and an FPGA. Zynqs more or less solves all previously mentioned issues, but again introduce news too, like the high price tag, and high programming complexity. As always in the end the best solution depends on the problem that needs to be solved.

In my Cmod S7 blog, I showed a sneak-peek of what I'm currently working on, its a computer graphics project, which I plan to use to participate in the latest project14 (Vision Thing). My plan is to design a simple FPGA GPU that would be used/controlled by a microprocessor who would do all the high level operations. Although I haven't got to this point in the development, its very likely that the slow communication between the microprocessor and the FPGA could severely limit what can be done with this approach. I believe that a better approach would be to use a Zynq, as it would allow me to communicate much faster to the FPGA GPU (there is a reason CPUs have always required a very fat communication pipe to the GPUs).

I would love to have the chance to experiment with a Zynq board and learn how make the microprocessor and programmable logic work together.

Hello Randall, Glad to be part of this community. It's not more than 1 month that i am connected to element14. In way of searching for such platforms for engineering students like me to showcase and learn skills, very luckily I got this and now i am here. My primary focus is to Improve VLSI chips and to see this world connected to Internet in a safe manner. I can't afford to buy everything for my projects in this time span so if I get this Cute Baby Board, this will be a great help to me. Well now I am working on Arduino Board.

Love for Element14 and Community.

I know, I don’t know, what I don’t know about the Minized is everything.

I can accept the shortcoming or I can do something about it. I am far from the age of young and short of the years needed to be called old. Retirement was a choice after 37 years in technology. Three different careers across electronic, education and computers has exposed me to a lifetime of gathering knowledge to develop an understanding.  Some knowledge I have retained, much has been left on the roadside. The greatest fear of taking on the retirement career was not finding a challenge.

A curiosity that boarders on one definition of insanity, extreme foolishness or irrationality is not far from the truth if I think of what I do to satiate the curiosity. To throw this bone my way is believing you can teach an old dog a new trick. Hey, I just called myself old. No the gift won’t further a career, secure a contract or position me as a member for the gig economy. Awarding me the dev board will only result in providing me the opportunity to experience the pure enjoyment of learning.

I can’t think of any project I could use this kit on. It would be nice to have something so I could impress the judges and improve my chances of winning. Until I develop the understanding of the dev board, I am unable to develop an idea of what to do with it. Don’t let this discourage you. Like a floor covered in lego’s building blocks, what gets built is determined only if you choose to discover how the pieces fit together.

If you award me such a gift I can promise you the band of merry technology warriors that hang out at this site will have to endure any writing generated from this work. Exploring technology is a pipeline of ink that feeds my pen. Writing is breathing. Writing about technology is breathing pure oxygen.

Sean

how we can learn this device.. and how this device is used to program.. i want to know and learn as well... i'm interested to learn this technology..and hopefully i'll work on this device in future

I would love to make a weather station for my home with this board. It will send the data to the cloud with the onboard wifi. With the help of services like cayenne and blynk seeing the data on smartphone/pc will be great.

I like your idea here. May I can suggest a few general things. Here goes

• When I design a project, I employ a divide and conquer plan. Your computer graphics idea can benefit too. First deal with getting raw data efficiently enough.
• Next reduce the data as soon as possible. Most of what you handle is noise with little value for the end goals. Eliminate that. Be sure to craft the goal(s) within this framework.
• Speaking of goals, be specific and not too broad. The goals need sharpness of vision( no pun intended). What I mean is try not solve every problem. This creates drift in focus making the project harder to achieve.
• And most important have fun. Remember the journey can be the driver not the goal post.

I hope this helps you. If you get stuck, there are many talented individuals on this community. Sorry if I pontificate too much.

Clem