Suggest a project!

[dreaquil]

I'm a student and have been asked to propose a project as my assignment for my unit on ARM micros which must include an interrupt, a timer and some comm (I2C, SPI or UART) at a minimum... any suggestions?

[dreaquil]

I'd actually thought of that but i figured too much external hardware... the hardest bit should be the micro not the external circuitry

[rolycat]

How about a data logger? Use a timer/interrupt combination to read data values at configurable intervals and log to a flash/RAM chip connected via SPI/I2C.

You could add a display and other features if you have the time/interest.

[dreaquil]

That's a pretty good idea, and checks all the boxes... might look into that one

[KM4FER]

There is a pretty cool experiment described in "Chaos" by James Gleek in which water is allowed to drip from a small nozzle.  The water flow is varied between individual slow drops and a continuous stream.  The time interval between each drop is measured.  If time interval between drop n and drop n-1 is plotted against time interval between drop n-1 and n-2 at a certain flow rate some interesting chaotic attractor patterns are developed.  I have always wanted to do this but it has never quite popped up to the top of my list.  It should be pretty simple.

Arrange a photo diode/detector pair such that a falling drop will break the light beam.  Use the impulse generated to trigger an interrupt to a microcontroller.  The microcontroller would then start a timer and wait for the next interrupt.  When that interrupt occurs record the timer value, reset and restart the timer, send the datum over a serial interface to somewhere for recording and plotting and wait for the next interrupt.  Repeat ad naseum.

If anyone should happen to do this experiment let me know cause I'd like to know how it worked out for you.

earl...
 

[kizzap]

How long do you have to do the project and how complex does it need to be.

What is always a good go to is any type of test equipment. Chuck in a graphical display, and you might have reason to justify using the ARM chip... (yeah I know you could do it with less, but hey.)