education News - Page 18 of 20 - CNX Software

April 7, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

$50 Mimas V2 Spartan 6 FPGA Development Board Comes with a VGA Port, 64MB RAM

Just last week, I wrote about miniSpartan3, an FPGA board powered by Xilinx Spartan 3A. It costs as low as $25, features an HDMI output port, but lacks RAM. Numato Lab’s Mimas V2 is another low cost FPGA board with a more powerful Spartan 6 FPGA, 512 Mb LPDDR memory, and instead of HDMI output, a VGA port has been included on the board. The board can be used for prototype development, signal processing, learning digital electronics and as an educational tool for schools and universities. Technical specifications: FPGA – Xilinx Spartan XC6SLX9 in CSG324 package System Memory – 512Mb LPDDR @ 166 MHz (MT46H32M16LF/W949D6CBHX6E) Storage – 16 Mb SPI flash memory (M25P16) + micro SD card slot Video Output – VGA connector Audio – Stereo jack USB – 1x mini USB 2.0 port for on-board flash programming Expansion Headers – Four 6×2 header with access to 32 I/O pins, […]

January 23, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Intel Education Content Access Point Is Designed for Schools with Unreliable Internet Connectivity and Power

Intel has introduced a new device that stores, manages, and publishes digital content for schools with low or intermittent connectivity and /or power. The device stores training materials in its internal storage, comes with a battery, and can be accessed by up to 50 students simultaneously. Specifications: SoC – Intel Atom Bay Trail-I E3815 Processor @ 1.46GHz with Intel HD graphics System Memory – 2GB DDR3L-1067 Storage – 8GB eMMC, Optional 500GB SATA HDD Connectivity – WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Wired Gigabit Ethernet, Optional 3G, Optional LTE USB – 1x USB 3.0 Misc – System and 3G/LTE LEDs, Factory reset and power buttons Power Supply – 12V/2A Battery – Lithium-ion polymer 7.4v, 4050mAh (up to 5 hours of battery life) Dimensions – 190 x 190 x 30mm Weight – 607 grams The system runs Ubuntu 12.04. The optional 500GB hard drive includes 400GB of preloaded content, and educator can use the remaining […]

November 6, 2014November 6, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Robotics News – Hack-E-Bot and RiQ Educational Robots, and Maker Club 3D Printed Robots (Pre-Orders / Crowfunding)

I’ve come across several robotic projects this week, so instead of picking one up, or writing a post for each, I’ll summarize the three products into one post. Two of the projects are educational robots based on Arduino, with the sub $50 Hack-E-Bot, or the more advanced RiQ robot, and Maker Club is a company providing the electronics for robotics kit, and you print the plastic parts with your 3D printer. Hack-E-Bot Robot Hack-E-Bot is an affordable open source robot that hopes to encourage children to learn about engineering, electronics, and programming. The robot is powered by Adafruit’s Trinklet Arduino compatible board, connected to a breadboard, and some add-on boards sensors. The basic version comes with a Sonar sensor, but more add-on boards are on the way including bump sensors, a buzzer, colored lights, a claw, a servo scanner, and so on. The project is listed on CrowdSupply, and has […]

October 31, 2014October 31, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

ARM Unveils Embedded Systems Education Kit Based on NXP LPC4088 Cortex M4 MCU

Following up on their first “Lab-In-a-Box” initiative based on Micro STM32F4-Discovery board and Wolfson audio card, ARM launched another low-cost toolkit, based on Embedded Artists LPC4088 QuickStart and Experiment boards, and called “Embedded Systems Education Kit”, to help university educators teach embedded systems design and programming concepts. The kit includes the following hardware, software tools, and teaching materials: Embedded Artists LPC4088 QuickStart Board and LPC4088 Experiment Base Board ARM Keil MDK-ARM Pro microcontroller development suite software licences Complete teaching materials including lecture note slides, demonstration code and hands-on lab manuals with solutions in source for four embedded system courses: ‘Efficient embedded systems design and programming’ teaches microcontroller fundamentals using NXP’s 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4 based LPC4088 microcontroller. ‘Rapid embedded system design and programming’ delivers embedded systems design training for the high-level ARM mbed API ‘OS design’ uses the royalty-free ARM Keil RTX RTOS to show how to design, program and optimize […]

July 26, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Lemaker.org is Giving Away Banana Pi Development Boards to Developers and Fans

Banana Pi is a development board powered by AllWinner A20 dual core SoC with 1GB RAM, and with expansion headers and a form factor very similar to the Raspberry Pi. It can run Debian, Lubuntu, Android 4.2, Arch Linux ARM, Scratch OS, and OpenSuse, but Lemarker.org community would like more educational materials such as open source software or hardware projects, tutorials, etc.., so they’ve launched a program to give away boards to developers and people who can help writing and maintaining documentation. There are three categories of projects: STEAM – “Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Mathematics” educational, open source projects running on the the Banana Pi Hardware or Software Project – Open source projects based on Banana Pi which could be helpful to the community, including open source hardware peripherals projects; Banana Pi Fans – You don’t need to be as technical as for the two others categories, but you […]

June 27, 2014June 28, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Acme Systems Arietta EDU Open Hardware Baseboard for Arietta G25 SoM (ARM9)

Arietta G25 is a tiny system-on-module (SoM) powered by Atmel SAM9G25 ARM9 processor and running Linux that sold for a discount earlier this year (9.9 Euros) for early backers, and is now available for 20 Euros, and support an optional Wi-Fi module for as low as 7 Euros extra. Acme Systems, the company who made the board, is now considering designing and manufacturing an open source hardware baseboard for the module, and is asking for feedback from the community before going ahead. Currently the idea is to have a baseboard with the following: Arietta G25 SoM connector (Vertical mount) 1x USB Host port I2C Sensors – Temperature and Humidity sensor, Light sensor Mosfet output for RGB led strip 2x relay output 1x filtered dry input 2x servo RC motors output Audio interface with embedded microphone and jack for PC speakers using Wolfson WM8731 codec Expansion headers for external modules already […]

June 16, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

ARM Introduces DSP ‘Lab-in-a-Box’ For Education Combining STMicro STM32F4-Discovery Board and Wolfson Audio Card

DSP (Digital Signal Processing) courses at University have traditionally used software simulation packages (Matlab), or hands-on labs using development kits costing around $300 per student. In order to reduce costs, ARM University program and their corporate partners have launched a DSP ‘Lab-in-a-Box’ so that university students can learn DSP and audio systems with hardware selling for about $50, or over 80% cheaper than previous educational hardware. A typical DSP Lab-in-a-Box (LiB) would come with: STMicroelectronics ARM Cortex-M4-based STM32F4 Discovery MCU board Wolfson Microelectronics and Farnell element14 Wolfson Audio Card. ARM Keil MDK-Professional development tool with a 1-year renewable software license. Teaching materials such as lecture slides, code samples, and hands-on lab manuals. STM32F4-Discovery board features an STM32F407VGT6 MCU (ARM Cortex-M4F core) with 1 MB Flash, and 192 KB RAM, sensors (motion and accelerometer), a digital microphone, and audio DAC, a micro USB connector, and various buttons and LEDs. The Wolfson […]

March 19, 2014March 19, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

MicroView is a Tiny Arduino Compatible Board with an OLED Display (Crowdfunding)

Last year, we’ve been presented with many small Arduino compatible boards such as MicroDuino, RFDuino, BLEDuino, Spark Core, Olimexino-Nano and more… All these boards have been own strength and connectivity options, but if you want to see what going on in your board, you’d either need to connect it to your computer, or connect some LEDs or an external display. Geek Ammo’s MicroView fixes that by providing an Arduino compatible board nicely combined with a built-in OLED display. This allows you to display stats, weather, play games, create wearable projects (watch, necklace), and all sort of other projects that may require a small display. MicroView specifications: MCU – Atmel ATmega328P @ 16 MHz with 32KB flash, 2 KB SRAM, and 1KB EEPROM Display – 64×48 OLED Display Digital I/O – 12 (of which 3 provide PWM output) Analog Input – 6 Operating Voltage: 5V Input Voltage: 3.3VDC to 16VDC, no […]