CE351 Microcontrollers, f2026
Syllabus
Skyboard schematic
Skyboard layout
The ASCII table
ATMEGA2560 datasheet
Pin map
Skyboard design files
Lecture Time/Location: 10:10 am - 11:05 am in SFH750
Dr. Li's office hours: Tuesday 9-11 am and 2:30-3:30 pm; Wednesday & Friday 1:30-3:00 pm.
Acknowledgement:
The development of the Arduino ATMEGA2560 Skyboard and its associated labs was inspired by the ENGR383 Embedded Systems course in the Electrical Engineering department at the Colorado School of Mines. The original labs were created using the PIC MCU by Dr. Chris Coulston and his colleagues. I adjuncted there in Fall 2024 during my sabbatical and decided to re-develop the labs using the Arduino ATMEGA2560 MCU. Undergraduate student Kaifeng Liu developed the Skyboard v2 and most of the code during summer 2025 under an internship sponsored by NSF STROBE.

Weeks	Dates	Lectures	Notes	Homework
Week 1	8/24	Introduction to the course, 2's complement, number systems, data types, operators, ASCII, masks, shifts video, notes		HW1, due Thursday 8/27
	8/26	Embedded C Programming Basics I video	Inclass 1	HW2, due Sunday 9/6
	8/28	Embedded C Programming Basics II video	Quiz 1 on numbers
Week 2	8/31	Skyboard assembly video
	9/2	Skyboard assembly
	9/4	Skyboard assembly
Week 3	9/7	Tutorial 1: Time Delay and the Morse Code video	Inclass 2	HW3: Complete tasks in Tutorial 1 due Sunday 9/13
	9/9	Time Delay and the Morse Code (Work in BH610)
	9/11	Tutorial 2: Timers in ATMEGA2560 video	Quiz 2 on C programming, study the in-class exercise on C programming Inclass 3 on Timers	HW4: Complete tasks in Tutorial 2 due Sunday 9/20
Week 4	9/14	More on Timers and play a song with the Skyboard video
	9/16	Play a song with the Skyboard video, notes	Quiz 3 on Timers
	9/18	Tutorial 3: More on timers, overflow interrupts, and a music box game video	Inclass 4	HW5: Complete tasks in Tutorial 3 due Wednesday 9/30
Week 5	9/21	No lecture, traveling to a grant meeting
	9/23	No lecture, traveling to a grant meeting
	9/25	More on the music box, TIMER1/TIMER3 ISR, state diagrams, typedef, enum{} video	Inclass 5
Week 6	9/28	More on Tutorial 3 Task 2.3 Tutorial 4: PWM, the RGB color cube video	Inclass 6	HW6: Complete tasks in Tutorial 4 due Wednesday 10/7
	9/30	More on Tutorial 4 video
	10/2	Tutorial 5: PWM for IR transmission and reception video	Inclass 7
Week 7	10/5	More PWM for IR transmission and reception video	Quiz 4 on PWM	HW7: Complete task 1 and 2 in Tutorial 5 due Wednesday 10/14
	10/7	More PWM for IR transmission and reception video, notes	Inclass 8
	10/9	More PWM for IR transmission and reception video	Quiz 5 on PWM/IR
Week 8	10/12	Mini-break, no class
	10/14	More PWM for IR transmission and reception midterm review video, notes		HW8: Complete task 3 in Tutorial 5 due Wednesday 10/21
	10/16	Midterm exam
Week 9	10/19	Tutorial 6: ADC and the microphone	Inclass 9 mid-term grade due	HW9: Complete tasks in Tutorial 6, due Wednesday 10/28
	10/21	More on ADC and the microphone
	10/23	More on ADC and the microphone	Quiz 6 on ADC and data acquisition
Week 10	10/26	PCB week session I		HW10: Complete the PCB design in the tutorial, due Monday 11/2
	10/28	PCB session II
	10/30	Tutorial 7: SD card, SPI, and double buffering
Week 11	11/2	More on SD card
	11/4	More on SD card
	11/6	More on SD card
Week 12	11/9	Tutorial 8: Audio Play Back	Course project PCB due, no extension
	11/11	More on audio play back
	11/13	More on audio play back
Week 13	11/16	The WDT Project
	11/18	The WDT Project
	11/20	STM32 and DMA
Week 14	11/23	Fall break
	11/25	Fall break
	11/27	Fall break
Week 15	11/30	STM32 and DMA
	12/2	STM32 and DMA
	12/4	STM32 and DMA
Week 16	12/9 Wednesday	Final exam: 9:45 - 11:45 am