As a studying Electrical Engineer, what project should I do during winter break?

1 points by sepetoner 13y ago ↗ HN

I am currently studying Electrical Engineering. Everything I am learning is extremely interesting to me. Winter break is coming up, and I want to make use of the month I have off.

- I am pretty good with Java and C++. Not great, but good. Should I try to elaborate on one of those for a month?

- I am currently in a microcontrollers class, and loving it. We are using Assembly to program the PIC18. I would love to make something awesome with a microcontroller, but am not sure I have enough knowledge at this point to do so. Would this be something I should look into?

- I have always been interested in hacking. Would it be worth spending a month just reading/learning different things about hacking? What languages should I look at? What should I read? What should I do to learn?

Programming, microcontrollers, and hacking are probably my best options at this point. What do you guys recommend? Why? Which is the most fun to you?

2 comments

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johnmurch 13y ago ↗

1. Pickup an arduino and build something - maybe a r/c truck with some IR sensors and servos that scan for an "autonomous" powered car

2. If you can get your hands on a raspberry pi - I would highly recommend building something with it that is platform based. e.g. http://hackaday.com/2012/08/29/party-photo-printer-built-aro...

Either way focus on 1 project and get it built from start to finish. Even if it sucks, focus on completion - just my $0.02

sepetoner 13y ago ↗

This is exactly what I was looking for. I have heard of both arduino, and raspberry pi, but I believe this is where my knowledge is lacking. What are their capabilities? Obviously I will look into them now, but what can they do? All I have done in my microcontrollers class is make an LED screen say different things, and move wheels forward and backward. Is this what these two do?