Reading the last post about how I will need to split intensive calculations over more that a single cycle, I can see people wondering I made the choices I did with the availability of the Raspberry Pi Zero and ZeroW. Here's some explanation

Switching to a different controller would sort this specifically and allow the use of C which solves several other issues too. However, the more advanced controllers are physically bigger, and more expensive, and don't run on 5v. Also this blending solution has the benefit of 0 cumulative rounding errors so when I reach the target number of cycles, I will have reached exactly the target level.

On a personal note, when it comes down to it, the vast majority of the fun of microcontrollers is figuring out how to get it to do what you want with the limited resources that are available, and the novel solutions like this gives a real insight into other problems. Of the 3-4 undergraduates I have spoken to I have always recommended doing at least something at this level, simply to give them an understanding of what the compiler/interpreter might do with their source code and an appreciation of resource management. You simply don't learn these things using Java, C# or even C++ really on something with a barrowload of RAM and a bunch of GHz.