Ideas for a project

Well next year I'm going to be taking an electronics course, and trough out the course I gotta work on a project, doesn't matter what is as long as it involves manipulating elements such as gates, ICs, PICs, etc. via a computer port serial or USB. It doesn't have to be a flashy project but it can't be too easy.

I was wondering if anyone has some ideas or a site where I can find projects like these, and what programming language can I use to control the USB port? I remember C++ had an I/O library if I'm not mistaken, haven't used C++ in a while. I have like 2 months before the course so I thought I'd prepare in advance.

Thanks for your time

Couple of places to snoop ... er.... investigate that could give you some great ideas. Check out Microchip ( http://www.microchip.com ), the CCS compiler folks have a reasonable priced C compiler for PICS and a support forum with lots of things going on there - all sorts of people working on projects of all kinds. There is also a picweb group out there. For a different processor, check out the avr freaks bunch -- http://www.avrfreaks.net/ You might also want to check out a couple of issues of Circuit Cellar - look at some of the ads in there for RFID stuff etc. Along the design lines, check out Eagle CAD - you can get the free version ( http://www.cadsoftusa.com/ )for personal (non-profit) use and it runs under windoze or Linux. Do schematic capture and board layout in it. Here was a cute little project in a recent issue of Electronic Design ... http://electronicdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=20025

Have fun !! Pics are fun to play with and both the avr and pic's have reasonably priced development kits available from a number of places. Good place for misc parts etc is Digikey ( http://www.digikey.com ) or Mauser Electronics.

mikey

I remember hearing somewhere about Oregano for designing, any thoughts on that?