A Student Owned Microcontroller Board

Laboratories provide valuable opportunities for students to work with professional equipment. This equipment is often costly, potentially unsafe, easily damaged, or difficult to operate. For these and many other valid reasons students are often provided limited access to equipment. Unfortunately when a laboratory is closed a student does not have access to the equipment. Moreover, when the course is complete the student loses access altogether. Clearly this goes against our desire as educators to maximize student learning opportunities. At Grand Valley State University (GVSU) junior level students majoring in Mechanical and Product Design and Manufacturing are required to take EGR 345 Dynamic System Modeling and Control. This course contains a significant laboratory component that involves data acquisition and control. In the past this course used expensive equipment that posed the problems mentioned previously. To overcome these issues the course has moved to a model where the students purchase their own controller for $30. The boards contain an Atmel Mega32 microcontroller, USB connector and interface circuit, LEDs, connector, and a fuse. The boards measure 1 by 4 inches and can be used in any PC with a USB port. Students can use free software to write programs in C. In the lab the boards are connected to supplementary circuit boards with circuits for voltage regulation, motor drivers, and protection circuitry. The paper describes the boards and how they support the course. Anecdotes and details are included for those planning similar implementations.