Digital Clocks
Project Type: Hardware
Role: Hardware designer, Hardware Engineer.
The project includes a Version 1 developed in 2017 and an advanced Version 2 in 2018. Version 1 was a count-down timer coded on a programmable logic device. Version 2 was a digital clock manually wired with an LED screen, a keypad and a buzzer. Users could initialize the time and set the alarm by tying in on a keypad. The buzzer would ring at the prospective time. It made use of a chip in model PIC24FJ64GA002 and the hardware was coded in C language and partially in assembly language.
My Work
The first version of the clock was an individual assignment in the Digital design lab where I learned to use VHDL to program my first hardware application. In this application, I allowed the users to enter the time and then the timer counts down to 0. Although it was a very simple application, it did me a favor in my quotidian life whenever I required a timer but wanted to abandon my cell phone that might distract me. The later microcontroller class provided me with an opportunity to implement a more thorough version of it as an individual project. In this version, I displayed the time on LCD screen, equipped a buzzer as the alarm and a keypad to do the settings. I also attached a temperature sensor to the clock so that it can detect the surrounding temperature and trigger the alarm as the threshold is reached.
Meaning to Me
These two programs are milestones in my academic life that mark my progress in hardware programming that I learned to use VHDL, C and assembly language to make my own applications. Besides, by working on these two programs, I gained a fundamental ability to deal with hardware which was the ability to understand the hardware manual and extract useful information from it. Mastering this skill, I believe that I can do many other jobs easier in the future.
Resources
Github(Version 1): Click here to view
Github(Version 2): Click here to view