mbed Mindmap Poster

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mbed Mindmap Poster

Page last updated 07 Apr 2011, by Simon Ford. 3 replies

Idea for a poster showing the range of things you can connect to mbed, to help give insight in to what a microcontroller and mbed specifically can do.

General ideas:

Present it like a big mindmap?
Use photos of devices/peripherals to help with recognition, make it interesting, give texture
Use branches containing some basic explanation, and have peripherals at the leaves.

/media/uploads/simon/_scaled_mindmap-sketch.jpg

It could use QR codes to link through to the cookbook page that talks about the peripheral, so you can find out more and how to use them easily; acts like an index

Spec

Mindmap of what mbed can be used with, for inspiration
Make sure it can scale up to A0 Landscape - ideally needs 100dpi images at that size?
mbed is centre with “brainstorm” around it
Bold colours, technical, sketchy yet clean lines
Use categories of devices you can connect to provide intermediate nodes/explanations: Displays, GPS, Bluetooth
UML?
Photos of actual modules/devices/etc at leaves
QR codes to link to mbed.org cookbook page
"Museum" like explanation/facts (but future looking)
Make it pop science so it is accessible to techy consumer, but still interesting/useful to tech/geek audience (hard balance!)
Make it useful/interesting as a stand alone poster

Experiments

Use mbed pinout card as centre? Shows interfaces for technical audience, although trying to connect specific peripherals to related interface is probably one level of complexity too far. Maybe have it in some box, with branches coming from that:

/media/uploads/simon/_scaled_mindmap-centre.jpg

Branch/leaf style? Keep bold colours of pinout card. Mindmap/sketch helps make it feel like it is not exhaustive. Attempt with bold colour but sketch-like lines/borders:

/media/uploads/simon/_scaled_mindmap-artwork-idea.png

Content and Categories

Can draw on cookbook for most categories and content. Each category should have an informative description, and 2-5 leaves.

Displays

Display simple text messages through to small interactive colour user interfaces

http://mbed.org/cookbook/Text-LCD "Text Display"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/Nokia-LCD "Graphics Display"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/4D-SGC-TFT-Screen "QVGA Touch Screen"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/uVGAII "VGA Monitor"

Motors

Drive motors and actuators, from simply varying speed through to digital control and positional feedback

http://mbed.org/cookbook/Motor "Motor"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/Servo "Model Servo"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/Dynamixel-AX12-Servo "Digital Robot Servo"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/QEI "Quadrature Encoder"

Connectivity

Make wired or wireless connections between your devices, or connect to existing systems like PCs, mobiles and the internet

http://mbed.org/handbook/Ethernet "Ethernet"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/USBBluetoothHost "USB Bluetooth"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/RN-42-Bluetooth "Serial Bluetooth"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/XBee "Zigbee"

Location and Identification

Determine your position or the position and identity of things around you

http://mbed.org/cookbook/GlobalSat-EM-406-GPS-Module "GPS Location"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/HMC6352-Digital-Compass "Digital Compass"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/SRF08-Ultrasonic-Ranger "Ultrasonic Range"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/ID12-RFID-Reader "RFID Reader"

Sensors

Use sensors to find out about your environment, motion or any other useful input

http://mbed.org/cookbook/TMP102-Temperature-Sensor "Temperature Sensor"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/BMP085-Pressure-Sensor "Pressure Sensor"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/ITG-3200-Gyroscope "Gyroscope"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/ADXL345-Accelerometer "Accelerometer"

Storage

Log large amounts of data on cheap storage solutions, and read image, sound or configuration files

http://mbed.org/cookbook/SD-Card-File-System "SD Card"
http://mbed.org/cookbook/USBMSDHost "USB FLASH Disk"

Layout

Layout, based on it being a mindmap of the cookbook

Explanation Sections

Poster Title:

mbed Cookbook

Cookbook/poster summary text:

The mbed Cookbook is a wiki for the mbed community to publish contributed libraries and resources; all the useful building blocks that can be reused to help cook up prototypes faster.

These are some of the contributions found at http://mbed.org/cookbook

mbed Microcontroller centre box title:

mbed Microcontroller

mbed Microcontroller centre box content:

The mbed NXP LPC1768 microcontroller comes in a 40-pin 0.1" pitch DIP form-factor, so it's ideal for experimenting on breadboard, stripboard and PCBs.

It supports lots of interfaces, so you can connect it to all sorts of input and output circuits and modules.

And downloading programs is as simple as using a USB Flash Drive. Plug it in, drop on your program binary, and you're up and running!

mbed overview title:

What is mbed?

mbed overview text:

mbed is a tool for Rapid Prototyping with Microcontrollers

It helps engineers experiment with new embedded technologies, quickly explore ideas, and build product prototypes

The mbed platform provides a powerful ARM Microcontroller in a DIP form-factor, simple Software APIs for using peripheral interfaces, an Online C/C++ Compiler for lightweight code development, and an active Developer Website to support the mbed community.

Find out more at http://mbed.org

Footer:

left: mbed | Rapid Prototyping for Microcontrollers

right: http://mbed.org

First Draft

/media/uploads/simon/_scaled_img_0381-1-.jpg

Text areas will need some work, plus way to link back to the fact all these things exist in the cookbook (urls, QR codes, tick box/star indicating supported)

Final version

3 comments on mbed Mindmap Poster:

Hexley Ball

# 29 Mar 2011

The mindmap poster is very intriguing. Your design is quite clever. I’m overcome with admiration – but that doesn’t stop me from making suggestions :-)

Unless I am missing something, the intent of the poster is to show prospective users how easy it is going to be to hook up interesting things to the mbed using freely-available software from the user community.

But I did not get the last half of that message when looking at the notes and sketches so far.

While the QR codes are a neat way to make a connection to the cookbook, some viewers may not be QR-enabled. Or they might not realize the importance of following the QR links to get the rest of the picture, so to speak.

Without explicit information about the cookbook, some users might misunderstand the poster, and think “Well, I can see that the mbed has SPI, I2C, and lots of other interfaces, so I guess pretty much anything in the SparkFun catalog can be hooked up. So how is that different from any other microcontroller these days?”

Perhaps the poster itself should elaborate on the importance of the cookbook. For example, suppose a portion of the mindmap were to be devoted to software. It could have branches corresponding to major sections of the cookbook contents, like “LCDs and Displays”, “Motors and Actuators”, “Sensors”, etc.; and corresponding leaves like “TFT LCD with HX8347”, or “Dynamixel AX12 Servo”, or “Bosch BMP085 Pressure Sensor”, etc.

That might hammer home the variety of cookbook “freeware” that is available.

Then the remainder of the mindmap could be devoted to the corresponding hardware branches, with images and blurbs along the lines you have described. This would help bring to life the range of goodies that one can hook to the mbed .

Perhaps my comments are premature – I realize that you are just presenting a rough sketch. Nevertheless, I thought you might be interested in one person’s initial reactions to the concept.

Good luck on the project. I look forward to seeing the final results.

The mindmap poster is very intriguing. Your design is quite clever. I’m overcome with admiration – but that doesn’t stop me from making suggestions :-) Unless I am missing something, the intent of the poster is to show prospective users how easy it is going to be to hook up interesting things to the mbed using freely-available software from the user community. But I did not get the last half of that message when looking at the notes and sketches so far. While the QR codes are a neat way to make a connection to the cookbook, some viewers may not be QR-enabled. Or they might not realize the importance of following the QR links to get the rest of the picture, so to speak. Without explicit information about the cookbook, some users might misunderstand the poster, and think “Well, I can see that the mbed has SPI, I2C, and lots of other interfaces, so I guess pretty much anything in the SparkFun catalog can be hooked up. So how is that different from any other microcontroller these days?” Perhaps the poster itself should elaborate on the importance of the cookbook. For example, suppose a portion of the mindmap were to be devoted to software. It could have branches corresponding to major sections of the cookbook contents, like “LCDs and Displays”, “Motors and Actuators”, “Sensors”, etc.; and corresponding leaves like “TFT LCD with HX8347”, or “Dynamixel AX12 Servo”, or “Bosch BMP085 Pressure Sensor”, etc. That might hammer home the variety of cookbook “freeware” that is available. Then the remainder of the mindmap could be devoted to the corresponding hardware branches, with images and blurbs along the lines you have described. This would help bring to life the range of goodies that one can hook to the mbed . Perhaps my comments are premature – I realize that you are just presenting a rough sketch. Nevertheless, I thought you might be interested in one person’s initial reactions to the concept. Good luck on the project. I look forward to seeing the final results.

Simon Ford

# 30 Mar 2011

That is a really good point; it should definitely give that insight that these devices have been enabled by people. I can see now that wouldn't be at all clear.

I like the idea of it almost being a graphical representation of the cookbook. I think the working title will should therefore be "mbed Cookbook", and it all from the context of a view in to what is enabled by mbed + the cookbook.

Like it! Thanks!

jim hamblen

# 10 Jul 2011

Are the files for the poster available?

I printed out a 3 by 4 ft version of the mbed pinout card and put it up on the wall of our student lab and this one would also be nice. Since it is so large, a hires version looks better.

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