As our circuits were to be based around an PIC chip I thought it would be a good idea to find out what it is and what it does.
Well PIC just stands for Programmable Integrated Circuit, which is great but I don’t know what an integrated circuit is yet!
On surfing around I found this amazing article on what they are, how they were developed and what it meant for the electronics industry as a whole: http://nobelprize.org/educational/physics/integrated_circuit/history/
So now I know that inside my little black box with eight legs (urg, sounds like an electronic spider!) are tiny little components for memory, processing and input/output circuitry, no wonder they’re sometimes called ‘computers-on-a-chip’! They are programmed and built into a product to make that product more intelligent and easier to use. For example a garden light designed to turn on when it gets dark. An input into the chip would be a light dependant resistor, once it gets dark enough the PIC would tell the output, in this case the light to turn on.
So it works a little like this: Right, now I know what it is I need to get on and finish my circuit to see if I can make it work.
| Input | Process | Output |
| Sensors, switches etc | PIC chip (microcontroller) | Turning lights on, making sounds etc. |
Right, now I know what it is I need to get on and finish my circuit to see if I can make it work.