August

• Have periodic meetings with your sponsor about the system requirements.
  • Get them cleared up ASAP. This way you know what to shop for.
• Begin parts shopping for major parts in your potential PCB. Make sure these major parts serve in completing your system requirements
  • If these major components have something called an evaluation module, you should buy one at this time. Procurement Office is arguably one of the biggest time-adders so make sure Procurement Lead presses them on lead times and verifying that parts are ordered. - Definition: An evaluation module contains the chip you're interested in on a reference design from the manufacturer. It also contains testing points, screw terminals, and other interfacing capabilities that let you test whether that major component will work for you and your system requirements.
• If an evaluation module is not available, pick up major components you're interested in at this time even if you're not sure you're going to use them. You'll be able to breadboard with these major components later on September:
• Begin testing these components, either with an evaluation module or a breadboard. This early prototyping lets you check right away if a component can be used or not
• Begin laying out your schematic in Altium. If you don't know how to use Altium, see the note below.

Note: If you don't know how to use Altium, don't worry. Students get a free license if you sign up with your university email.

Use this to learn how to design a PCB from start to finish. If you need additional help with more advanced tasks in Altium, come down to IEEE and some of our guys will definitely be able to help. Phil's Lab is a YT channel with excellent Altium resources as well.

Note: I would personally not recommend KiCAD. Not industry standard software, your sponsor will just shrug and say "good luck."