2025-05 · Team — Embedded Systems Engineering
Microcontroller Group Design Project
A team-built microcontroller-based prototype nominated for the Brunel Engineering Plus showcase.
Highlights
- ✓Designed and implemented a functional microcontroller-based prototype from scratch
- ✓Programmed using Flowcode — a graphical embedded development environment
- ✓Produced professional technical documentation and project report
- ✓Nominated for the Brunel Engineering Plus showcase event
Background
This was a group project for the Microcontroller Group Design module at Brunel University London. The brief required teams to design and implement a microcontroller-based solution — combining hardware interfacing, low-level programming, and systems thinking into a single working prototype.
Approach
The team divided responsibilities across hardware design, firmware development, and documentation. The microcontroller was programmed using Flowcode — a graphical programming environment designed for embedded systems that allows logic to be built through flowchart-style diagrams and compiled down to machine code. This made it faster to prototype and iterate on the control logic without getting bogged down in low-level register configuration from the start.
We followed an iterative prototyping workflow: define the behaviour, implement it in Flowcode, deploy to the microcontroller, test against the physical system, and refine. The tight loop between software and hardware required precision that purely software projects rarely demand.
What We Built
The project involved designing a microcontroller-based solution that demonstrated core embedded systems principles:
- Peripheral interfacing — reading from sensors and driving output components
- Flowcode logic — visual programming of the control flow and state transitions
- System integration — bringing hardware and software together into a cohesive, testable prototype
- Technical reporting — full documentation of design decisions, circuit diagrams, and test results
Full technical details are documented in the project report submitted as part of the module.
Recognition
The project was nominated for the Brunel Engineering Plus showcase event — a university-wide recognition programme for innovative and high-quality student engineering work. Being nominated among all engineering disciplines across the university was a meaningful validation of the team's effort and the quality of the final prototype.
Learnings
Flowcode abstracts away much of the low-level complexity of microcontroller programming, but understanding what the generated code is doing underneath still matters — especially when debugging timing issues or unexpected hardware behaviour. Working in a team also reinforced how important clear communication is when hardware and software decisions are made by different people.