September

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

WARNING: The curriculum at this time strongly prioritizes paperwork. The advice I will give from me and many other teams is to do prototyping and paperwork in parallel so that any issues during prototyping can be resolved in a timely manner.

• 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."