There will be a hands-on workshop at the ASEE annual conference in June 2009 on using the PIC24 16-bit family in an introductory microcontroller course. Participants are assumed to already have familiarity with microcontroller basics (the particular vendor/family is unimportant). Given this assumed background, the workshop is a fast-paced introduction to assembly language and C language programming/interfacing with the Microchip PIC24 microcontroller family. Participants will need to have a portable PC that runs some form of Windows (Windows 2000 or later) in order to install the various software tools used in the hands-on exercises. Participants should also have two free USB ports on their PC in order to take full advantage of the hands-on exercises. The workshop is given by Bob Reese, J.W. Bruce, and Bryan A. Jones, who teach senior design, microprocessors, embedded systems, and robotics in the ECE Department at Mississippi State University. The complete CDROM of training materials provided to the attendees can be downloaded here. Here is a ZIP archive that contains the schematic/board files for the PCB that was used in the training. Take-home PackageThe ticket cost is $70, for which the participants will receive to take home:
 Tentative Schedule A tentative schedule for the workshop is show below:9:00—9:30 Introduction, Setup 9:30—10:30 PIC24 Introduction, Assembly Language Programming 10:30—11:30 Hardware Introduction 11:30—1:00 Parallel I/O & Working Lunch (graciously provided by the ECE division) 1:00—2:00 Interrupts/Timers 2:00—3:00 Serial I/O 3:00—4:00 Data Conversion 4:00—4:30 PICkit2 Usage 4:30—5:00 Wrap-up The schedule is aggressive, and the hands-on exercises are designed to be self-paced. There are more exercises included in the workshop material than we can actually cover, so participants can continue working with the material at home if desired. We have also reached an agreement with Intronix to provide an Intronix 34 Channel USB logic analyzer to each participant for use during the workshop (but not to take home). This is a great USB logic analyzer that is also very affordable (list price of $389). Any workshop attendees will be given the opportunity to purchase one at a special price of $299 after attending the workshop (must be purchased through Intronix by contacting them after the workshop).  Participants will install the following tools on their PCs to be used during the training:
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