1. OVERVIEW AND INSTALLATION

First things first, we will go over the hardware and software for these exercises.

The board we will be using is from STMicroelectronics (often abbreviated as ST). ST provides many development boards that allow hobbyists, students, and even professionals prototype countless applications. In our exercises, we will be using the ST board to interface with a microphone for input and a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) for output. We will present these devices and our ST board in Section 1.1.

In order to facilitate the development of applications, ST partners with third-party companies that provide integrated development environments (IDEs) for their boards. These tools can sometimes be overwhelming as they allow a lot of customization, but they are meant to help you! Attention to detail and reading the documentation will help you in your successful workflow. More on these tools and their installation will be covered in Section 1.2.

In Section 1.3, we will combine the hardware and software to build our first project!