CE351 Microcontrollers, f2025
Syllabus
Skyboard schematic
Skyboard layout
The ASCII table
ATMEGA2560 datasheet
Pin map
Lecture Location: 11:15 am - 12:10 pm in BH570
Dr. Li's office hours: M 10 - 11 am, W 10 - 11 am, Th 10 am – 12 pm, and Fri 9 - 11 am in BH601.
Acknowledgement:
The development of the Arduino ATMEGA2560 Skyboard and its associated labs was inspired by the ENGR383 Embedded Systems course in the Electrical Engineering department at the Colorado School of Mines. The original labs were created using the PIC MCU by Dr. Chris Coulston and his colleagues. I adjuncted there in Fall 2024 during my sabbatical and decided to re-develop the labs using the Arduino ATMEGA2560 MCU. Undergraduate student Kaifeng Liu developed the Skyboard v2 and most of the code during summer 2025 under an internship sponsored by NSF STROBE.

Weeks	Dates	Lectures	Notes	Homework
Week 1	8/25	Introduction to the course, 2's complement, number systems, data types, operators, ASCII, masks, shifts video, notes		HW1, due Friday 8/29
	8/27	Embedded C Programming Basics I video, notes	In-class exercise 1 due Wednesday, 9/3 in class
	8/29	Embedded C Programming Basics II video	Quiz 1 on numbers
Week 2	9/1	Embedded C Programming Basics III Introduction to the Skyboard video
	9/3	Assemble the Skyboard		HW2: Complete the Skyboard assembly and test due Monday 9/8
	9/5	Assemble the Skyboard video
Week 3	9/8	Assemble and test the Skyboard
	9/10	Tutorial 1: Time Delay and the Morse Code video		HW3: Complete tasks in Lab 1 due Monday 9/15
	9/12	Time Delay and the Morse Code	Quiz 2 on C programming, study the in-class exercise on C programming
Week 4	9/15	Tutorial 2: Timers in ATMEGA2560 video, notes	In-class exercise 2 on Timers (due at 12:10 pm)	HW4: Complete tasks in Tutorial 2 due Monday 9/29
	9/17	More on Timers and play a song with the Skyboard video, notes	In-class exercise 3 on Timers (due at 12:10 pm)
	9/19	Play a song with the Skyboard video, notes
Week 5	9/22	Tutorial 3: More on timers, overflow interrupts, and a music box game video	In-class 4 on Tutorial 3	HW5: Complete tasks in Tutorial 3, due Monday 10/6
	9/24	No lecture, work on your assignments	Travelling to IBM for the quantum grant
	9/26	No lecture, work on your assignments	Travelling to IBM for the quantum grant
Week 6	9/29	More on the music box, TIMER1/TIMER3 ISR, state diagrams, typedef, enum{}
	10/1	More on Tutorial 3 tasks 2.2, 2.3, feedback/review on Tutorial 2 video
	10/3	Work on HW5, meet in BH610, no lecture
Week 7	10/6	Tutorial 4: PWM, the RGB color cube video, notes		HW6: Complete tasks in Tutorial 4, due Friday 10/17
	10/8	More on Tutorial 4 and midterm review video
	10/10	Work on Tutorial 4, meet in BH610, no lecture
Week 8	10/13	Mini break
	10/15	Midterm Exam
	10/17	Tutorial 5: PWM for IR transmission and reception video, notes		HW7: Complete tasks 1 and 2 in Tutorial 5, due Monday 10/27
Week 9	10/20	PWM for IR transmission	Midterm grades due
	10/22	PWM for IR transmission / reception Task 3		HW8: Complete tasks 3 in Tutorial 5, due Monday 11/3
	10/24	PWM for IR transmission / reception Task 3
Week 10	10/27	The course project, PCB design		HW9: PCB design file due Friday 11/7
	10/29	The course project, PCB design
	10/31	The course project, PCB design
Week 11	11/3	Tutorial 6: SD card, SPI, and double buffering		HW10: Complete tasks in Tutorial 6, due Monday 11/17
	11/5	More on SD card, SPI, and double buffering
	11/7	More on SD card, SPI, and double buffering
Week 12	11/10	Work on HW8
	11/12	Work on HW8
	11/14	Work on HW8
Week 13	11/17	Tutorial 7: Digital signal synthesis (DDS)		HW11: Complete tasks in Tutorial 7, due Tuesday 12/2
	11/19	More on DDS
	11/21	More on DDS
Week 14	11/24	Fall break
	11/26	Fall break
	11/28	Fall break
Week 15	12/1	Project board assembly		Project report due Wednesday 12/10
	12/3	Project board assembly
	12/5	Final exam review
Week 16	12/11	Final exam: 7:30 - 9:30 am