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Developing
The Use of PIC Technology Within A-Level Technology
Courses |
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School: Ian Teasdale |
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Fellow: Whitley Bay High School, Tyne
and Wear |
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Email: ian_t@bigfoot.com |
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Aim |
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To introduce, support and develop the use
of PIC microcontrollers within A-Level Design
Technology courses. |
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Description |
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PIC microcontrollers are being extensively
utilised within the electronics and control
industries for their cost, speed of development,
simplicity, adaptability, size and a host
of other advantages over traditional component
based solutions. Although ideal for student
projects, they have not been used within schools
due to the need for extremely complex programming.
Recently a number of much simpler graphical
programming packages have been released specifically
to solve this problem and it is the use of
these packages that forms the basis of this
work. Initially the emphasis will be on A-Level
Design Technology courses, primarily since
PICs will form part of the new A-Level syllabi
due to start in September 2000. It is hoped
though, that as the work develops, to extend
support to GCSE course and even KS3. |
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Outcomes |
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An introduction of all
currently available packages either
education based or industry based and
an assessment of their suitability across
various age ranges |
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A teaching pack containing: |
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- An introduction to PICs and how
they have developed |
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- How PICs are used
in every day items and how this has
changed since ‘pre-PIC’
days |
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- Information on the variety of devices
available |
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- Suggested lesson plans to introduce
PICs |
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- Demonstration projects that solve
the same problem using component based
electronics and PIC programming using
various packages |
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Support through a
website that will enable visitors to
download the teaching pack and sample
projects and also the facility to upload
their own sample projects, so building
a library of work |
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