IEEE Carleton PCB Design Workshop

### DESCRIPTION

I am currently in my last year at Carleton University studying Engineering. I love to learn and teach others about concepts I am passionate about. I have done projects involving web development, hardware systems projects, to running workshops and networking events for students and professionals. I love being the "Jack of all trades".

You can visit my website for more info: http://irusha.vidanamadura.net

For the past 4 years, I have been part of the IEEE Carleton University Student. This is a non-profit student organization that aims to stimulate technological innovation and professional development in all branches of engineering and science by spreading theory and application of known and emerging technologies and practices. We host various events and initiatives to reach this goal. Some of the items include:

- Professional Networking events for technical companies

- Technical workshops teaching students the fundamentals of software, hardware, debugging, technical writing, and programming best practices

- Technical talks by professionals from the industry and academia

- Industry tours in local areas

This semster, we are hosting our first in a 2-part series workshop where we teach interested student in undergraduate and graduate programs about the basics of PCB Design. The first of the sessions involved with designing the schematic and the layout of the board and the second part of the series regarding the assembly of the board.

### TECHNICAL DETAILS

The heart of this workshops series board is the Atmel ATMega32U4 Chip. It is an easy beginner chip that can be used to bring young learners of embedded development and pcb design to be more motivated. We chose this chip over the more popular ATMega328p since this chip already has an embedded USB Controller.

In addition to the chip, we are using an External crystal, a reset switch, a RGB LED, and protection sircuitry for the board. A USB port will be used to do the programming of the board once the workshop series is over.

Figure 1: The Layout of the reference board

In the first part of the PCB workshop, participants worked on their own versions of the baord using the same components. The objective is to learn how to use the PCB Design software and create your own production.

Figure 2: Some of the different designs made in the workshop

Once the board is designed and assembled, an Arduino Bootloader wil be burned for those who are beginner to the embedded space.

### Words to PCBWay

We are planning to run this workshop series more than once this year and we would like to receive discounts to help cover the cost of printing these boards for each person.