Abstract
A new electrical engineering (EE) course on microcontrollers has been developed at Penn State. This new course differs from previously required computer engineering (CMPEN) courses on microprocessors or computer organization in several important respects. Among the differences are the addition of a hardware laboratory and changes in the relative emphasis on computer organization, programming and interfacing. More importantly, the course has been designed to serve three new purposes: to broaden the vision of the students, to integrate material from throughout the EE curriculum and to provide greater background for general engineering practice. The objective of the new course is to introduce the application of microcontrollers in electronic and electromechanical systems. Accordingly, the course includes a three-hour per week laboratory in which students utilize a commercially available microcontroller for an LCD and keypad-based user/system interface, a digital thermometer; a stepper motor controller; and a dc servo motor controller.