[SATLUG] XCSSA Meeting: It's Microcontroller Programming Night! (Mon, May 19th, 7pm)

[Tweeks]

                Xotic Computer Systems of San Antonio *
                 \_____\________\__________\___\______X
                        \________\__________\___\_____C
                                  \__________\___\____S
                                              \___\___S
                                                   \__A
         (* this email is best viewed in fixed fonts) 
                    http://xcssa.org

Finally... this Monday's session is going to be covering something that I've 
been wanting to get back into for many moons (since college).  
Microcontroller programming!

What's a microcontroller?  In short, a microcontroller is a one chip computer 
with built in A/D (analog to digital) converters, digital control lines (for 
controlling and measuring things), memory and more.  You can think of 
microcontrollers as the "thing" that programmers and engineers use to effect 
the physical world. They're used in everything from dishwashers and 
automotive ABS systems to robotic systems and spacecraft.  

A friend of mine at Rackspace is going to be talking about an Open Source 
based microcontroller development platform (based on the Atmel AVR 
microcontroller chip) that allows even the most basic beginner to really do 
some way cool stuff!  Here are just a few examples of what regular Joe's are 
doing with them:
	http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Projects/ArduinoUsers

Monday's presentation 
-----------------------
The Arduino Open Source Microcontroller Dev Platform: By Scott Simpson
Scott is going to go over some of the basic differences between PICs and 
Microcontrollers, and the jump into:
 -The Arduino board and it's variants
 -The Arduino shields (interface boards)
 -The Arduino Integrated Development (programming) Environment (or IDE)
 -Demonstrate writing, compiling, uploading and running sample programs

If you've ever wanted to get into electronics, robotics, PIC/Microcontroller 
programming, or anything cool like this, then you owe it to yourself to come 
check out this meeting!  It'll be a hoot!

Where?
--------
We'll be at our regular meeting place, the Nail Technical Center on San 
Antonio College Campus at 7pm.  Map here:
	http://xcssa.org/#MAP

Hope to see you there!

(I'll update the web site wit URLs and more later tonight)

Tweeks
President of XCSSA.ORG