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Senior Design Projects Using Basic-Stamp MicrocontrollersThe EET Program at our institution offers two microprocessor courses. The first course is CET2123 Microprocessor Fundamentals, where basic concepts in the microprocessor, including theassembly language and the hardware architecture are introduced. The second course is CET 4149Microprocessor Interfacing and covers more advanced topics and concepts, such as ADC(Analog to Digital Converter), serial port communication and timers. Both courses make use ofthe PIC18 microcontroller, which has become a significant player in industry as well as amonghobbyists. Despite the fact that the first course is required and most students take the secondcourse as a technical elective, students rarely have used this particular microcontroller for theirother class and/or capstone projects. This may be due the fact that laboratories in these coursesusually focus on single topics, where a particular concept is tested. Students don’t have theopportunity to work on an integrated design project, including the software and the hardware. Asa result, students feel they do not have the full knowledge required to use the microcontroller in acomplete engineering design project.The addition of a new course in robotics, and the involvement of the EET program in the annualIEEE Southeastcon Hardware Competition, have introduced our students to several third partydevelopment boards, such as Arduino and Basic Stamp. Unlike the PIC18 microcontroller, thesedevelopment boards provide a pre-assembled hardware platform, which include the necessaryperipheries and programming libraries.In this paper, the authors present the current trend in the EET program regarding the selection ofa microcontroller for capstone projects by our students. The introduction of the new course,(Introduction to Robotics) which makes used of the Parallax Basic Stamp Module, has made theBasic Stamp the number one platform picked by seniors for capstone projects during the last twoyears. First, the basic stamp module, microcontroller and supporting board are introduced. Then,a brief description of how it is used in the robotics course, including some projects, is presentedfollowed by discussion of some successful capstone project based on the basic stamp module.Finally, the correlation between the extensive use of the basic stamp and student recent line ofemployment is presented.