====== 296 Team Meeting - February 5, 2016 ======
** Attended: **
     * Kyaw
     * Kenny
     * Jaimie

==== Meeting Plan ====
     * Arduino blinking LED
     * Practice Proposal presentation 
     * Arduino and Embedded system Q/A

==== Discussions ====
==Embedded Systems==
  - Ordered List ItemWhat is an embedded system?
     * Computer system that mixes electrical and mechanical hardware
  - What is a microcontroller?
     * Intergrated circuit (IC: Processor core, memory, programmable input/output, memory)
     * "Intelligence" of a system
  - SPI, ADC, UART, I2C
    - What do they stand for?
        * SPI: Serial Peripheral Interface Bus
        * ADC: Analog to Digital Converter
        * UART: Univerasal Asynchronous receiver/transmitter
        * I2C: Inter Integrated Circuits
    - What are they?
        * SPI: Four wire seial bus4
        * ADC: Converts voltage to digital number to represent amplitude
        * UART: Used for communications over a computer or peripheral device
        * I2C: Serial computer bus communication system that transfers data between computer or computer component, multi-master and multi-slave, single-ended
     - What are they useful for?
        * SPI: Good for short distance communication in embedded system
        * ADC: Digital signals propagate better than analog signals (easy to detect noise)
        * UART: Computer hardware that translates between parallel and serial data
        * I2C: Bi-directional 2-wire bus
     -How are they all related?
        * All needed for a circuit to work efficiently and communicate with the circuit
  - How do you think this information will relate to this lab?
        * We will be working with a lot of this device or with its concepts
==Arduino==
  - What is Arduino?
        * Open-source prototype platform with software and hardware
  - What is an Arduino Uno?
        * A microcontroller (ATmega328)
  - What kind of programming language does the Arduino IDE support?
        * Uses C and C++
  - What are the two functions that are present in an Arduino program?
        * Main and loop
  - How is it different from a regular microcontroller  
        * It is part of PCB and it's easy to code without HDL
  - Why do people use the Arduino
    - What are some advantages?
        * Overall it is easy to use and access
        * Open Sourced
    - What are some disadvantages?
        * Needs power supply unlike traditional microcontroller