Low cost AVR microcontroller development kit for undergraduate laboratory and take-home pedagogies

Microcontrollers study is an important course in the major of measurement control technology and instrument. Development tools, such as full-speed emulators and software simulators for microcontrollers, are either too expensive or too complicated to be used in laboratory classes for teaching purposes. In this paper, a low cost development kit based on AVR microcontroller suitable for laboratory and take-home pedagogies is developed. The development kit consists of system power, microcontroller socket, and fifteen peripheral function modules. The hardware configuration and usage of each unit in the development kit were introduced. Practical applications show that the low cost development kit can improve the level of the microcontroller education.