[updated 23/09/11] New XCore competition - have your say!

[phalt]

I believe one should also take a look at previous attempts by XMOS to organise such contests and why it did or did not work out. More notably FoosTech and The XMOS Challenge

Yep we're looking into previous projects to see what was good / bad about them ;)

[shashi]

* I also think its important to allow software and not just hardware as it makes it easier for folks to get involved that don't yet have hardware by using the simulator for example.
Al

This would be nice. And for such contributions it would be nice to get some xmos hardware (dev kits?) to motivate more involvement.

There has also been some mention about the earlier XMOS contests. I seem to have missed those announcements (was not aware of XMOS though I have been tinkering with other uC/FPGA based stuff for the last 5 or 6 years). So any such contests, in future, should be more widely publicised. Perhaps XMOS could come up with a contest in collaboration with Circuit Cellar. The community around mbed grew rapidly - see their cookbook/handbook/forum pages - during/after that contest.

Shashi

[Berni]

/Lilltroll - Pressed the wrong button, I was suppose to press quote; but instead I pressed edit. I had the intention to make a reply.
Some good text from Berni is missing here due to my misstake


Also one thing not related to contests but i think is causing turning away people from xcore are the kind of dev kits xcore makes. People are usually divided in to heavy programmers that are scared to pick up a soldering iron or the more hardware inclined people that are not so great with programming. And now if you look at the dev kits they are sort of in between, they don't really have lots of on board features but then again they are not suited well at all to be used as MCU modules so you don't need a 8 layer board and a gazilion external components for the CPU. So they should look in to branching it out in both directions. So make some sort of little board that lets you use a xcore chip just by giving it 3.3V and having I/Os brought out in a small form factor thats cheep enough to use in a design, but also make a dev board that has lots of
easy to impenitent features on it like PS/2,VGA,RS232,audio,analog inputs/outputs,SD card etc for the programmers so they can just dive in to cool stuff without even looking at a soldering iron.Meaby even give it a adruino shield compatible header.

So yeah i suggest making a more friendly dev kit and kick off a properly done design contest based around that kit.

My intended reply


I just want to fill inhere, because I totally agree.
If you want to access a little of everything you need a XDK with XMOS, but it is that expensive that you commit to XMOS development if you buy it.
Building HW with XMOS interfacing with other chips is typically done with many 1 bit ports.
Most now esisting dev. card has in general very few expansion ports, and indeed very few free 1 bit ports. You cannot connect many things that take out the maximum potential of the XMOS chips.

Let's take a look at a competitor below XMOS range of performance.
Single 16 bit CPU/DSP @ 100 MHz


You get many different types of IO* out of the box, AND they have an expansion slot on the PCB to enable access to 60 pins on the PCB.
*
Embedded JTAG emulator (Skip that, the XTAG2 has a nice price level now)
USB 2.0 high speed
Micro SD card slot with 2-GB micro SD card
Line In/Mic in, headphone out audio jacks
60-pin expansion connector
96 x 16-pixel OLED display
Software framework for USB audio class and HID applications
Out-of-the-box demo software
Full documentation with source code on CD-ROM (Skip CD-ROM, it is already old then chipped to customer)

and a add-on connector for wireless connectivity.

It is an introduction both to a "poor" programmer or a poor HW designer.

I would like to see some starter kit with the L2 with very good connectivity.
There are ideas on the GIThub...

[Folknology]

Oh one other possibility is when offering a dev kit prize, always offer Xmos components to the same value as an alternative, that would likely be more useful to established participants (Xcore members owning Xmos hardware) e.g:

If we take the current parcel the low cost AVB audio kit, you could offer 50 XS1-L01A-TQ48-C4 chips instead.

Just an idea
regards
Al

[Berni]

Umm... what the hell just happend? I did not post that, did the forum hiccup and overwrite someone else's reply over mine since i don't see any edits done on the post eater.

[ale500]

The dev kit is a great idea but the one with the components is as good as it gets :), specially if you add as many reset and 1V step-down converter chips as needed to the mix (say 5 L1s + 5 reset +5 1V chips), as they can be difficult to find :).
Both hardware and software challenges are a good idea!.

[phalt]

So any such contests, in future, should be more widely publicised.

My other task at the moment is boosting publicity ;)

Berni: you didn't post that long post?

Regardless:

As for creating new development kits, I believe that is another question that I can bring up with the sales and marketing as you made a good point for it. Our dev kits at the moment are just the bare bones without and I/O to play with out of the box.
Considering the main market for the dev kits is companies wishing to develop applications on the board I assume they have all the I/O stuff they need.
But I don't see why an extra product couldn't be made bundled with a bunch of I/O components!

Oh one other possibility is when offering a dev kit prize, always offer Xmos components to the same value as an alternative, that would likely be more useful to established participants (Xcore members owning Xmos hardware)

The Project of the Month is currently $100 of XMOS kit, but we'll have similar rules for the new competition should someone want something other than the standard prize.

[Interactive_Matter]

Considering the main market for the dev kits is companies wishing to develop applications on the board I assume they have all the I/O stuff they need.
But I don't see why an extra product couldn't be made bundled with a bunch of I/O components!

Wasn't there something called slice kit, aiming to develop a bare dev board with plugable I/O components?
Since no matter what kind of board you design. It will have the wrong number/combination off I/O components for my project ;)

[Folknology]

The conversation about dev kits takes this thread somewhat off-topic, but its a conversation we should definitely have, Berni can you repost on a new thread with the corrected content to kick it off?

regards
Al

[phalt]

The conversation about dev kits takes this thread somewhat off-topic, but its a conversation we should definitely have, Berni can you repost on a new thread with the corrected content to kick it off?

regards
Al

It's nice to get these concerns out though!