At the School of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, we have recently signed up to the ARM University Program. Inspired by the mbed LPC1768 'Lab in a Box', I decided to ditch using the 8-bit microcontrollers in our embedded systems labs and move over to 32-bit microcontrollers.

I have now developed two new courses based on the mbed platform. An introductory module in Level 1 that introduces students to the fundamentals of C/C++, microcontrollers, interfacing with buttons/switches/LEDs/servos etc., serial comms, and moving onto slightly more advanced topics such as waveform generation with the on-board DAC. The module finishes with the students creating a game on an LCD display.

The second module builds upon the first and runs in Level 2. There is an additional focus on hardware (the students build a switching regulator circuit to power their embedded system), plus a look at more advanced software topics such as timers and interrupts, designing programs with finite-state machines and interfacing with sensors using I2C. The student then undertake an individual project in which they design, build, program and assemble on PCB (including surface-mount!) a small, portable embedded system.