I'm A Student now!

I'm going to tafe in australia and i had a very weird experience.

I and indeed the entire listening audience at his induction into cert II in computer systems and engineering (so far so boring, absolutely no hands on in 3 days and, they don't like Arduino, they're PIC FRIENDLY ONLY!!!!
so then, after these new horrors....

I and others distinctly heard him say "Computers can't be locked out to prevent others from using them" now today someone got into a hissy fit for using that computer they were on because the room was full so i logged him out and used it, going by his description ...

So I ask the tutor/lecturer/facilitator whatever

You said it's not allowed, they can't lock it up and go for dinner...

bu bu bu

yes? if (oh yeah? if?) they're not excessively logged out like for 10 minutes or so?... but that's not what you said?!

he then goes, but yeah.....

hmmmm

I see, so i pissed 2 people off in 1 go... all the lecturer/facilitator/whatver did was wink and me...

I see words, but in a strange, meaning-deficient arrangement.
Did Google Translate have a brain-fart?

computers get locked (but not in use because they leave) locked in the form of Alt Ctrl And Del..... switch user button solves that issue.

however..... it all seemed odd

Maybe the computer was locked by one of their friends?! If there is a written rule against locking computers then just follow it. Nothing wrong with pissing others off.

With the PIC friendly folks, you probably get more conversation by avoiding the whole Arduino thing. With other students though, tell them what they can do with arduino. There is so much you can do with it so anyone already interested in engineering or programming would be happy to know about it.

I see a lot of things such as curriculum as backwards now that I have used arduino for a while. There is this programming in C class I'm sure every school has, where all you do is programming for programming sake, counting coin example every semester. Kind of like "theoretical" English, just learning syntax and dialogs. Would be a thousand times more interesting and useful if it involves an example or two with arduino. It tells you what you can do with even intro to C level of skills.

Same as EE. Endless circuits problem with nodal analysis and Thevenin theorems for a whole semester while lots of these kids can't even build a voltage divider on a breadboard. What a shame to not be able to do the most basic circuit? With arduino you can instantly turn a voltage divider into a resistor sorter and students would be happy to sort out a bunch of random resistors with their skills. How can we integrate PIC in this picture? Maybe it's doable with PIC but you don't get to use a PIC until 2-3 years into your program. I'm going with the sure thing, arduino.

liudr:
Maybe the computer was locked by one of their friends?! If there is a written rule against locking computers then just follow it. Nothing wrong with pissing others off.

With the PIC friendly folks, you probably get more conversation by avoiding the whole Arduino thing. With other students though, tell them what they can do with arduino. There is so much you can do with it so anyone already interested in engineering or programming would be happy to know about it.

I see a lot of things such as curriculum as backwards now that I have used arduino for a while. There is this programming in C class I'm sure every school has, where all you do is programming for programming sake, counting coin example every semester. Kind of like "theoretical" English, just learning syntax and dialogs. Would be a thousand times more interesting and useful if it involves an example or two with arduino. It tells you what you can do with even intro to C level of skills.

Same as EE. Endless circuits problem with nodal analysis and Thevenin theorems for a whole semester while lots of these kids can't even build a voltage divider on a breadboard. What a shame to not be able to do the most basic circuit? With arduino you can instantly turn a voltage divider into a resistor sorter and students would be happy to sort out a bunch of random resistors with their skills. How can we integrate PIC in this picture? Maybe it's doable with PIC but you don't get to use a PIC until 2-3 years into your program. I'm going with the sure thing, arduino.

I had to switch from a university because it was like that. All theoretical, no hands on. While theory is nice, hands on experience is highly valued in the networking/server admin fields. Hell, even most of our "programming" was pseudo-code.

based on my college experience, and my wife who just started a few years ago, dont spend all your energy on one professor saying crap they dont mean.... many of them do that cause they like to live in this bubble where they are always correct, even when they contradict themselves.

As far as PIC's go, well out here in the real world PIC's tend to rule for off the shelf programmable micro's, so get used to them. For example recently one of our venders went though the choices for a micro, squat ram, tiny package with can bus capability (the cheap ones did not have the transceiver internal, but thats beside the point)

the ATtiny was somewhere in the upper 30's to lower 40 cent per unit, which of course was my vote cause one of the edumacated EE's (I have a CS degree) and I can rip out some AVR code really freaking fast on smaller projects. The PIC came in at like 18 cents a unit programmed from the factory with our firmware.

When your going to make a couple million units, do the math.

What I hate about PIC's on small projects or hobby level is the nickel and dime crap. This isnt bad when your doing it on a large scale, buy the crap you need, get it done, profit, but ... for a small scale example I found a reel of old PIC16F688's (SMT) that was obsolete as far as our parts lists go and no longer in inventory.

Hey, I thought to myself, I have a project where these would be perfect, Ill snag or 50 and put the 2550 left into engineering parts inventory for whatever use we can think of. I asked the bosses politely if I can snag one of the dozen old ICD2 programmers, which they didnt care, and dragged the mess home.

well, having the chips and a programmer I was ready to roll, no turns out I need a programmer to plug into the programmer cause the 16F688 doesnt have something or whatever crap, which is another slightly larger PIC to program the PIC from the ICD2

So now I have this rats nest, USB & 9V going to a hockey puck which has a 6 pin RJ11 phone jack going out to a board sitting on a breadboard that contains another PIC, that will program the 688 (and ONLY THAT CHIP) but only in though hole, with a hand made DIP to SMD ZIF adapter and the GD microchip software starts fussing about the ICD2! Like 2 nights later I can make a damn LED blink

UGh

When you're in college, you're not there to learn about PIC or ATmega or any other specific product; you're there to learn how to use a microcontroller to solve a problem. When you're in the real world, you'll do the math (e.g. like Osgeld says on cost of components vs. size of the run), look at the standard tools your company/group uses, or maybe just "use X because we've alway used X". If you and your prof did your jobs, you'll know enough about solving problems with microcontrollers that you can adapt to the specific tools at hand.

-j

kg4wsv:
If you and your prof did your jobs, you'll know enough about solving problems with microcontrollers that you can adapt to the specific tools at hand.

Pretty difficult with just one MCU class one semester just my 2 cents. Only those motivated to do more will learn more. They learn more about problem solving with their senior project. I wish every student were doing some projects at home besides school projects but students nowadays have too much besides their study.

Pretty difficult with just one MCU class one semester just my 2 cents. Only those motivated to do more will learn more.

Well, you've got to look at the whole program before getting the idea that it's only one semester. Start with the freshman level intro to engineering where they'll do a project from a kit or an arduino project, add in a semester of programming and another of data structures, progress through the circuits and electronics labs where they play with resistors and power supplies and transistors, go through logic where they see gates and FPGAs, spend a semester in the embedded systems course, and finish off with a semester or two of senior design where they'll do something a bit more sophisticated, and they have a chance to come away with a reasonable education, especially given that they have to take literature and history and other non-technical stuff as well.

As for side projects for the motivated, we've got a student club building a satellite. Delivery for payload integration on April 1, launch currently scheduled for mid-July.

-j