Difference between revisions of "Exercise - Creating a Flowchart"
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Revision as of 12:11, 11 June 2013
The task is to produce a Flowcode flowchart that lights a lamp for ten seconds when a switch is pressed.
Although it may not be realistic to use a microcontroller in such a straight-forward application, it illustrates the technique of producing a Flowcode program.
The program itself may form part of a bigger program.
The flowchart sequence will be:
- Check if the switch is pressed.
- If it isn't, go back to the beginning.
- If it is:
- Switch on the lamp.
- Wait for 10 seconds.
- Switch off the lamp.
- Go back to the beginning.
It takes such a short time for the microcontroller to carry this out, that we don't need to worry whether the switch latches on or not.
- Open Flowcode.
- On the Startup screen, click on 'New embedded project'. (See Opening Flowcode
- The Project Options dialogue box opens.
- (Click on the link for a full explanation of all the options available.)
- Accept the default settings by clicking on 'OK'.
- An empty flowchart window opens, which may contain other items such as a System Panel, Dashboard Panel, Properties Panel etc.
- These can be revealed or hidden using the View menu.
- Set up the flowchart window so that you can see the System Panel and the Properties Panel.
- The flowchart window should resemble the one shown below (depending on the configuration.)
- The System Panel and Properties Panel can be moved by 'clicking and dragging the title bar at the top of each panel.
- Drag and drop a 'Loop' icon between the Begin and End icons.
- The 'Loop' icon makes the microcontroller repeatedly run through the program, (though the icon can be configured to limit the number of times this happens.)
- Inside the loop, drag and drop an 'Input' icon from the Icons toolbar,. (See Tools and Views.)
- Double click on the icon.
- This opens the 'Properties: Input' dialogue box, allowing you to configure the way the program treats information from the switch.
- This information will be contained in a variable called 'switch'.
- Click on the down arrow at the right-hand end of the 'Variable:' box to open the variables dialogue box.
- Hover to the left of the 'Variables' label and click on the down arrow that appears.
- Click on the 'Add new' option to open the 'Create a New Variable' dialogue box.
- Create a new variable named "switch" with initial value "0" and description "Copies the state of the switch"
- Leave the 'Variable type:' as 'Byte'.
- (For more information about variables, see Creating Variables and Variable Types.
- (The resulting dialogue box is shown opposite.)
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