The ep5 Educational Broadcasting Foundation
education in technology for schools and public broadcasting
ep5BAS . . . automation – the C# way
This detailed explanation of the ep5BAS building and general-purpose automation project is currently being written. Please note that it is updated frequently as additional content is added. We are grateful for your patience.
ep5BAS serves two distinct purposes.
First, it makes connecting your own program to proven industrial I/O hardware easy and as close to bulletproof as we can get it.
Second, it offers a growing library of methods and algorithms for automating real-world processes.
In this collection of introductory information on using ep5BAS, we will try to make ep5BAS as easy as we can to use, to work with, and to maintain. Please feel free to experiment with the sample programs offered on the project website. Consider them templates upon which to base your own unique applications. Also, please feel free to share your innovations with others through open-source freedom of access and use.
ep5BAS is not a product aimed at the masses chasing social media or entertainment. Its true strength lies in functionality and the sense of agency that it gives to the technically curious. The person whom we want to reach is driven by the thrill of making machines respond to their code, people who are interested in learning and making this subject their future work — not by abstract principles, but by the tangible feedback loop of thought, logic, and real-world action.
The best path is showing rather than telling. Clear, visual, and technically accurate stories — even brief walk-throughs — that illustrate how someone can write a program to turn on a light, read a sensor, or automate something meaningful will go much farther than any spec sheet. The emotional hook is real-world control, not academic theory. In short, the ep5BAS FLOSS project is for those who delight in bending the computer to their own will rather than the other way around.
We are curating a selection of content that we believe best frames ep5BAS as both doable and powerful. These will serve as a great start for those interested in where ep5BAS is going.
This project is much stronger when we each contribute our strengths. Together, we can shape ep5BAS into something both technically solid and genuinely inspiring for those who truly value and respect creativity.
Automation takes many forms. Ours is simple. The objective is to use COTS hardware and free software to construct modestly scaled control systems requiring a less-demanding level of expertise on the part of the programmer. To achieve programmer-friendly code, ep5BAS splits functionality into separate “black boxes”, each containing the code that performs a single major function.
Foremost among the advantages of this methodology is maximizing the clarity of the code. Each module does one thing, enabling the programmer to focus clearly on that one function or task as the code is developed. To enhance productivity, the code is commented usefully, and the external documentation is made an important part of the ep5BAS suite and not merely an afterthought done carelessly and inadequately.
In an aircraft flight control avionics system or the vetronics in an automobile, the software is refined and made as efficient as available technology allows. This requires an immensely costly development effort in which the software and hardware are matched to each other with great care. At the other end of the spectrum is ep5BAS, which puts ease of source-code use and efficiency of programming above high operational efficiency.
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