Do you think you need some simple tutorials on Microcontroller programming?

Question

This is not 100% programming related. But I think this is somewhat useful because it is addressing a minority in the SO community.

Microcontroller programming is one of the interesting areas in programming. I saw some topic here requesting the Resources for starting / learning / discussing about PICs.

Example topic

Since I have plenty of knowledge and experiences in this area I am thinking of publishing some resources that helps a novice to learn them from the basics. It will be not just a theoretical publication and will be based on example projects. I hope to start this over a new blog + forum so the users can dynamically interact with each other. I came in to this decision because I found very small amount of Sites that a novice can start learning and work collaboratively.

What do you guys think about this? Have you ever experienced such difficulty? Do you think you can get some use of that? What are the things you like to see on the site?

I would be thankful If you are not going to close this as NPR. I just want to do some service to other microcontroller lovers :)

Answer 1

There are already a few such tutorials on the net (e.g. this one from SparkFun), another one might be a valuable addition, but only if it is better or different in some way.

What will you offer that is a real improvement?

Some suggestions:

• Don't assume I have windows
• Have some side discussion of difference between various MCU and/or supporting electronics. Discuss some of the trade offs
• You'll need a pretty general tutorial to suck people in, but the real value added might be in a specialized focus after the start
• Build up to something useful and/or geeky cool
• A unit on component integration (i.e. I can buy a Polar style heart rate receiver, and a MCU and a USB interface. How do I get them talking to each other so I can build an exercise data logger?)

What every you do, I'm looking forward to it (just learning embedded stuff in my spare time...).