Dates: 11 Oct, 12 Oct 2023 | 9am-5.30pm | Classroom Learning
Duration: 2 Days
Course Overview
Participants will acquire the skills to connect more sophisticated and intelligent sensors and actuators to the microcontroller. Topics covered include USART, SPI and TWI port programming, and designing and implementing robust communication protocols for communication between microcontrollers over serial links.
This course is part of Professional Certificate in Basic Electronics and Microcontroller Programming for IoT.
Course Objectives
By the end of this course, participants will be able to connect smarter and more powerful devices to microcontrollers, and to get microcontrollers to communicate with each other.
Who Should Attend
IoT Engineer and Computing Professionals.
Prerequisites
Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronic Engineering or Mathematics with programming knowledge. Other Bachelor Degree holders who can exhibit programming experience may also be considered. Learners must complete the Microcontroller Programming for IoT course.
Course Convener
(Click photo to view biography)
Dr Colin Tan Keng Yan

Dr Colin Tan Keng Yan
Dr Colin Tan Keng Yan is a senior lecturer at the Department of Computer Science, NUS School of Computing. He specializes in embedded systems and operating systems related courses. Colin has taught courses on real-time system design, operating systems, programming methodology, and had taught a course on software product development for digital markets. In this course students are given a semester to build three production quality software systems, with the first two being on Facebook and on HTML5, and in the third project students are given free rein on the technologies that they would like to use. The third project is particularly beneficial to students, as they get real first-hand experience in building a software product, from conceptualizing, validating their concept with users, to User Interface (UI) design, UI validation with users, building the system, and finally to marketing their systems to recruit thousands of users before their project submission deadline. Projects completed in this module have spawned startups like Pearcomms, HunQRy and PaperBaton, while alumni in this course have gone on to careers in tech giants like Facebook, Google and Microsoft.
Colin, together with two other CS colleagues and three ECE colleagues, is currently teaching a course that gives first-year Computer Engineering students first-hand experience in building non-trivial computer systems like tele-operated robots. Students learn key issues of high-efficiency hardware programming, dealing with electro-mechanical issues like variations in motor and gearbox quality, secure network communications, and real-time mapping of the environment using algorithms like SLAM. They also pick up key skills like performing independent research, and learning how to improvise to solve problems with limited resources. Colin also runs courses in drone design, construction and programming.
Colin has written a lightweight operating system for the Arduino called ArdOS that fits into less than a kilobyte of memory, available at https://bitbucket.org/ctank/ardos-ide/wiki/Home. He has also written several other libraries for the Arduino including smartTimer, a library for writing timer-based embedded systems, which also includes a software-based real-time clock for the Arduino, and smartSerial, a bare-metal bare-bones serial communications library for the Arduino. His Bitbucket repository is available at https://www.bitbucket.org/ctank.
Colin is Lab Coordinator for Makers@SoC, a maker space that was recently set up to give students a chance to immerse themselves in maker culture, which is a blend of DIY and technology. Makers@SoC addresses two key concerns of the industry: that we are producing technology professionals who can only code and cannot build anything physical – a key concern in fields like IoT – and that CS majors may not have a good appreciation of the hardware on which they build their systems. Makers@SoC runs courses in 3D modeling, basic electronics, microcontroller interfacing and programming, circuit design and fabrication, and through-hole and surface-mount soldering.
Colin is Chairperson for the IT Software Solutions for Business trade for Worldskills Singapore 2016 and Worldskills Singapore 2018, and has been a long-time General Secretary for the National Olympiad for Informatics (NOI) competition. Outside of academia Colin reads widely into Catholic theology, is a sponsor and a speaker at the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) Programme, and is a council member and a formation instructor at the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites (OCDS) in the Roman Catholic Church of Singapore. He is also an avid foodie, a cigar collector, an enthusiast of retro technology, and a somewhat decent and fairly eclectic cook.
What Our Participants Say
“I learnt the basics of embedded system development and will begin my journey from now on.”
– Haochuan
“I’m able with full capacity to build a simple LED sensor detector with a buzzer with confidence to work. From that simple step to a giant leap into IOT and what I can build. The best part was that I was not working alone but was collaborating with my classmates with full of fun ideas and a memorable memory in class@COM3. Breaking the barriers to have a common goal together with people who came from all walks of life.”
– Gregory Poo Kim Chye
Course Fees
Total Nett Programme Fee Payable, Including GST, after additional funding from the various funding schemes
Participants must fulfill at least 75% attendance and pass all assessment components to be eligible for SSG funding.
To enquire, email soc-ace@nus.edu.sg
To register, click Register
Course Codes
TGS-2022013103 (Classroom Learning)
TGS-2022013114 (Synchronous e-learning)
Course Fee Breakdown
Singapore Citizens
39 years old or youngerSingapore Citizen
40 years old or olderYou may also like to view:
Catalogue of Programmes for Individuals
- Course Category
- Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
- Business Analytics & Data Science
- Cloud Computing & Internet of Things
- Cybersecurity & Data Governance
- Digital Business & Technopreneurship
- Digital Health & Nursing Informatics
- Digital Technology & Innovation Management
- Digital Transformation & Change Leadership
- Education Technology & Learning Design
- Emerging & Disruptive Technologies
- FinTech & Blockchain
- Interactive Media Development & Metaverse
- Software Programming & Networking
- UX/UI Design & Digital Product Management