I've got a book suggestion for you. There's probably some better ones out there but it's the one I happened to read recently.
I think it's exactly what you're talking about doing and does a decent job of holding your hand to get you started while still showing you exactly what's going on.
The way things are explained in the book easily translates to using other AVR chips.
If you like Maths and Circuits, look into embedded systems. Depending on how deep you want to go, you can work with circuits, maths (especially embedded is getting popular in AI, Digital Signal Processing etc etc). A lot of what you do here is low level and you dont always have the luxury of nice IDEs for e.g
I switched from a software engineer to embedded systems. I am currently doing my masters in it, I didn't enjoy software engineering. I always enjoyed tinkering with electronics as a kid, so this is something I really enjoy.
I do find it a bit more challenging, because my adhd makes it hard for me to read, a lot of embedded is going through pages and pages of datasheet, so that is kind of a bummer.
I would suggest you get a starter arduino kit or what I did was get this book: AVR Programming: Learning to Write Software for Hardware and an AVR programming kit, there are plenty of them, get a beginner one and then have a go at it, see if you enjoy it.
Since you are not using the arduino libraries I highly recommend this book. I use it for reference all these time
AVR Programming: Learning to Write Software for Hardware (Make: Technology on Your Time) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1449355781/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_2V54V80BPRGZ8J37F2PS
the 328p is a great chip to start out with... a lot of tutorials and guides out there. Also they have very good data sheets on everything. I suggest this book if you want a good place to start
I agree, for transitioning from Arduino AVR makes a lot of sense. AVR is pretty nice to work with and will teach you a lot of stuff that is useful on other platforms while keeping complexity down. AVR studio is nice for transitioning because it lets you easily include Arduino libraries as well.
Also, I highly recommend the Make book on AVR. It's a very good introduction and one of the few programming books I would actually recommend buying.
I highly recommend this book
AVR Programming: Learning to Write Software for Hardware (Make: Technology on Your Time) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1449355781/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Y9JEWQA49F2NFG5KPRJ1
I highly suggest this book
AVR Programming: Learning to Write Software for Hardware https://www.amazon.com/dp/1449355781/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_aYI.AbE33D53Q
This is a great book and it has a section on doing exactly what you propose. UART is the way.
https://www.amazon.com/AVR-Programming-Learning-Software-Hardware/dp/1449355781
Make AVR Programming (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Make-Programming-Learning-Software-Hardware/dp/1449355781/) is a pretty solid introduction to programming an Arduino in C.
I was in a similar situation a little while ago, and I decided to learn to program AVRs directly in C. I bought this book, and I think it's a really good resource.
On a Mac, you can use any text editor you like, then flash the code to the AVR from the terminal.
AVRs are really cheap by the way! Here on Digikey, you can get them for $2 each.
https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/microchip-technology/ATMEGA328-PU/ATMEGA328-PU-ND/2271026
Thanks very much. Do you know about this book? I have found it really useful. https://www.amazon.com/AVR-Programming-Learning-Software-Hardware/dp/1449355781/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500993136&sr=8-1&keywords=AVR+programming
It's a pretty well made/official guide, I would not have bought anything unless I would have been sure the guide I'm following is made by a trustworth person
http://www.amazon.it/Make-Programming-Learning-Software-Hardware/dp/1449355781
The code that runs MultiWii based FC's is mostly C, C++ and assembly. That's a fairly steep learning curve for someone new to programming. (I'm not sure of your skill level)
I would recommend starting with more basic Arduino programming and experimentation. You can work your way up to interfacing with the same basic sensors and programming challenges (like PID math) that FC's require.
This is a good book to get you there once you're past the basics. http://smile.amazon.com/dp/1449355781
Also take a look at the code repositories that are out there for projects like Cleanflight. https://github.com/cleanflight/cleanflight
Williams also wrote a good book on the topic.
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