Another year, another contest

Since already have way to many project on my waiting list, I participate less in design contests than I used to. (I didn’t even come around to describe the projects I already did for them).

So when I stumble over one, I look whether it sound interesting or not. Sometimes there are interesting prices (I still need a decent scope beside my iMSO104), sometimes the idea is just fun (like for the last one). Sometimes the contest theme hits a nerve and its something I always wanted to play with.

When NXP informed me about their new “AXP logic design contest”, I was wondering in which category I should put it. The prices where not really for geeks of electronics engineers. And Doing something useful with just four configurable logic gates?

An idea

But when there is nothing useful to build, maybe something completely useless? And what could be more useless than the most useless machine? Granted, it could be build without any logic at all. But since the motor I could use for that project (got salvaged from an old device) would be too fast, I would need a PWM control. Typically this would be a job for maybe a 555 timer. And since the direction of the motor needs to be reversed, maybe an additional H-bridge.

This looked like it could be a nice idea. For the contest, one get a board with 4 configurable, single-gate logic gates (the 74AXP1G57). From that it should be possible to build a small RC oscillator and some glue logic for controlling the bridge.

So I applied for the contest, and got accepted. A while later I got my board, and now the work can begin…