DSP Course Using Teensy 3.0

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Derangedgamer123

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As many of you know there are an abundant amount of open course ware from many universities over many topics. MIT and I think Cornell(??) exceed in this area. And I have found this very valuable resource http://www.dspguide.com/pdfbook.htm as a great book for an open course in DSP. One idea I had would be to construct labs that would utilize the Teensy 3.0 in practically each chapter that could be implemented on the board.

The reason for a post (and this might need to go into project support) is what are going to be my pitfalls for the teensy 3.0-> where am I going to hit walls on the account of lack of hardware resources.... I know the MCU has some great DSP features yet I fully understand that the MCU is not a full blown DSP and never will be. My theory is that the clock and the DSP extensions might just be enough to utilize these basic DSP algorithms and make use of Pauls amazing platform in a classroom that will expose the user to DSP concepts in a fun and inviting way.

These are the book chapters: (I can see some chapters just not happening with this hardware)
1: The Breadth and Depth of DSP
2: Statistics, Probability and Noise
3: ADC and DAC
4: DSP Software
5: Linear Systems
6: Convolution
7: Properties of Convolution
8: The Discrete Fourier Transform
9: Applications of the DFT
10: Fourier Transform Properties
11: Fourier Transform Pairs
12: The Fast Fourier Transform
13: Continuous Signal Processing
14: Introduction to Digital Filters
15: Moving Average Filters
16: Windowed-Sinc Filters
17: Custom Filters
18: FFT Convolution
19: Recursive Filters
20: Chebyshev Filters
21: Filter Comparison
22: Audio Processing
23: Image Formation & Display
24: Linear Image Processing
25: Special Imaging Techniques
26: Neural Networks (and more!)
27: Data Compression
28: Digital Signal Processors
29: Getting Started with DSPs
30: Complex Numbers
31: The Complex Fourier Transform
32: The Laplace Transform
33: The z-Transform
34: Explaining Benford's Law

This is all food for thought and I would love your opinions!
 
I believe you're going to really like the upcoming Audio board and library.

Until it's officially released, I can't talk too much about the details.
 
I am excited!! I will see what I can do about getting this course setup as open source and free for public :p

I have some basic concern with these area's I am not quite sure about how they can be implemented and this is why I wanted to tap into the greatness that is PJRC forums!

Concepts of Image processing (This isn't even in current lessons due to it being such a different beast.)
Even though there is a MCU being used I wonder if this would water down the experience trade off of using a real world DSP or is interfacing with a CODEC standard and using these next gen MCU now common practice (As you can tell I have much to learn...)

Limits on the memory for different digital filters is my final question would this screw the learning process because of hardware issues... like IIR or FIR could never really be implemented...

This might evolve into a larger project for a final year design and I just wanted to open these discussions up on the front end before I go crazy 1/2 way through development to find out that I cannot implement a core concept on the Teensy 3.0

Finally the only reason I wanted to get this out there in the public (via this post) is because I wanted to get the vibe from others on utilizing simple programming tools and easier development platforms for integrating more complex DSP concepts so things are not as lost in the learning process.
 
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... is interfacing with a CODEC standard and using these next gen MCU now common practice

.. or is interfacing with a CODEC standard and using these next gen MCU now common practice (As you can tell I have much to learn...)

if you believe freescale, it will, or should be: eg http://www.freescale.com/files/ftf_2010/Americas/FTF10_FTF-IND-F0872.pdf

there's also a FIR example in there. but RAM pretty sure will be a limiting factor on what can be done. i wouldn't underestimate things though. in the world of music gear, for instance, there's been a lot of movement recently owing ao to cortex M4.

i'm not a dsp person but it strikes me that many a concept of image processing should be teachable as a concept of audio processing; it's no coincidence, historically speaking, that some of the earliest digital image processing stuff was done by folks at Bell labs, for example. long time ago. so it might even be educative to stay a little more basic.
 
I recall sending a followup email, since it had also been a lengthy exchange of private emails. I believe they finally went with a DSP dev board from Texas Instruments, selected moreso due to a donation from TI than based on technical considerations or software support.

Of course, this was for sometime in the 2014 academic year. The audio library took a *lot* of work... and still has a huge wish list of features, but it wasn't until late 2014 that we finally had a stable 1.0 release.

Very recently I've been looking at developing curriculum for a short 1-2 hour workshop. Obviously that'll be just a quick hands-on practice session making sounds, rather than an in-depth course on DSP. But maybe we'll again get some academic interest... and useful progress can be made now that we've got a stable library to build upon.
 
This is something I have a huge personal interest in since completing my masters thesis in DSP and human cognition. I would love to hear some of the discussion/answers to OPs questions regarding the expected limitations on the hardware side to the chapters of the book he mentioned.

I also think the Teensy finally represents an approachable, cost effective means for marrying audio, DSP, programming and practical electronics in an educational context, something my company is involved with (we provide hands-on workshops for musicians, artists, young people and university students in Ireland around audio electronics). I'd be looking to put together some workshops using the Teensy (probably around a DIY digital guitar effects pedal I mentioned in another thread).
 
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