Almost every Wednesday this semester, the Embedded Hardware Club has hosted one-to-two hour workshops on subjects of interest to its members. Last week was no exception; Club President John Drogo ’16 ran an interesting and innovative workshop to show members how to read and decode a microprocessor assembly at the club’s lab in Russell Sage Laboratory 2202. Microprocessor assembly languages function by mapping directly to the underlying hardware CPU instruction sets. Assemblers can take in human-readable assembly code and produce machine code.
Those members who succeeded that night found a secret message written into the program. Whether they succeeded or not, all participants walked away with excitement and satisfaction due to the new understanding of programming for embedded hardware they gained from the workshop.
Previous workshops have covered topics ranging from the design of custom printed circuit boards to the use of the popular Raspberry Pi single-board computer as an embedded controller. The variety of themes and the combination of professional skills with interesting topics and sections help members cultivate a stronger interest in club activities and passion for electric circuits. The coming workshop will be today at 6 pm in the Mercer Lab on the sixth floor of the Jonsson Engineering Center, and will be a joint effort between the EHC and the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers to teach students the often overlooked, but incredibly necessary art of soldering electronics projects.