Embedded systems building blocks
Introduction
Embedded systems building blocks (often called e-blocks) “are small circuit boards each of which contains a block of electronics that you would typically find in an electronic system. Each E-block performs a separate function as either an input sub-system, an output sub-system, or a processing sub-system. E-blocks can be snapped together to form a wide variety of systems that can be used for teaching and learning electronics and for the rapid prototyping of complex electronic systems.” (Wikipedia, retrieved 12:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC).
See also Fab labs, another kind of hardware setup that is becoming popular in education.
The UC Riverside e-blocks
“The goal of the eBlocks project is to empower regular people, having no programming or electronics experience, to build basic useful electronic systems around the home, office, store, etc. To achieve this goal we are creating a set of embedded system building blocks - eBlocks - that are easily connect together to build a huge variety of basic but useful monitor/controller systems. The key to our approach is to add compute intelligence to components that previously had none - to sensors, switches, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), speakers, etc. Adding compute intelligence to those items was previously cost and power prohibitive, but extremely small, cheap and low power processing devices now make such addition possible. Ideally, people could simply connect such eBlocks together to build basic systems.” (eBlocks Home Page, retrieved 12:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC))
This system also includes a simular to model prototypes before building them.
Links
- Related eBlock Projects (UC California).
- SlashDot article (2004, with comments)
- eBlocks Put the 'Fun' into Math and Science Education Edby Stiles, College of Engineering, University of Arizona, February 19, 2008
Systems
- Connected with research labs (may also be commercially available)
- eBlocks : Embedded Systems Building Blocks (University of California, Riverside)
- Crickets (MIT)
- Other
- Matix E-blocks
- [ Arduino]
Bibliography
- Cotterell S. and Frank Vahid. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), April 2005. PDF
- Cotterell, S.; Vahid, F.; Walid Najjar; Hsieh, H., "First results with eBlocks: embedded systems building blocks," Hardware/Software Codesign and System Synthesis, 2003. First IEEE/ACM/IFIP International Conference on , vol., no., pp. 168-175, 1-3 Oct. 2003 Abstract PDF (Access restricted).