Raspberry-Pi

Raspberry-Pi: Inexpensive mini-computer to learn programming

A Raspberry Pi is a tiny, inexpensive computer that uses ARM processors, just like most smart phones. Started out from United Kingdom by Raspberry Pi Foundation, the Pi is originally designed to promote the education of basic computer science in many schools and developing countries. When its original model came out, it became more popular than expected. People start to use Pi everywhere including many robotics and IoT applications. For this class in particular, it serves as a nice platform to program and trigger hardwares under the same environment, making lab design more efficient. Hence, we can focus on learning hands-on digital signal processing more efficiently as well.

Fe-Pi Audio:

Fe-Pi Audio Z V2 chip (on the left) is a low-cost chip to enable complete audio capability on the Pi. With this chip, the Pi is able to play and record sound properly for fun signal processing practice. For this class, this chip is initially soldered on the Pi for later use.

CP2102:

CP2102 chip (on the right) is a simple USB-to-UART bridge controller. In the class, we use this chip to communicate with Pi for initial configuration settings using our computer. In order to start communication, a driver has to be installed. The link of the driver is provided below.