Bringing an concept to life is at all times difficult. There are a number of angles to go off on when beginning a brand new venture, and electronics design is not any completely different. Engineers and hobbyists are inclined to method their tasks very in a different way.
Hackster’s Board Designer Competitors threw out a problem to electrical engineers and fanatics to design an progressive, aesthetic, and purposeful printed circuit board (PCB). Sponsored by Nordic Semiconductor, Autodesk, and PCBWay, the competition ran from December 2024 to Could 2025.
On Could twenty third, seven winners had been introduced, every with completely different approaches to their tasks. We contacted them to search out out what motivated them and what made their venture stand out.
Kitchen Sink Award: Juan Carlos Sanchez
The Xurave PocketQube Equipment (XPK) is a modular improvement platform created for STEAM college students to “discover and have interaction in house sciences.” It mirrors the design of the PocketQube miniaturized satellite tv for pc utilized by universities for house analysis and exploration.
Juan Carlos Sanchez has been engaged on the equipment for 2 years as a part of an initiative to create low-cost academic supplies for college kids in creating nations. He believes cheap, easy-to-use studying instruments are essential to selling STEAM careers, and these instruments will “play a key position in future technological revolutions corresponding to house exploration.”
The Xurave Equipment is constructed on a single breakaway-style PCB that may be separated and reassembled right into a chassis for different digital parts. Based on Sanchez, this reduces manufacturing prices and invitations the consumer to work together with the electronics actively.
It’s powered by the nRF54L15 chip and contains a LoRa module for monitoring and information transmission in house. For testing and pre-launch operations, it has a dongle card with a Raspberry Pi microcontroller and a LoRa receiver.
It makes use of recycled batteries and three.5mm plugs for the Electrical Energy Subsystem (EPS). That is “to advertise the thought of giving issues yet one more use — to withstand the relentless cycle of consumption, acquisition, and disposal.”
The Frankenboard Award: Rodney Trusty
Rodney Trusty’s e-textile glove makes use of flex and capacitive contact sensors to regulate LEDs, vibration, and sound. The glove employs textile flex sensors, washable and comfy parts created from conductive thread.
Trusty is a self-taught embedded engineer working within the protection sector. He’s a giant advocate of studying iteratively with aspect tasks. He wrote a CAD program, Digital Fiber Studio, for creating e-textile circuits, and the Yendor Flex Glove was made to indicate what Digital Fiber Studio can do.
He says he approaches electronics design like a comic book ebook author, picturing one thing that does not exist and bringing it into existence with no matter he has helpful. He says this mindset retains him rising and making an attempt new issues.
He has been a member of Hackster since 2020 and is impressed with the expertise in the neighborhood. He quips, “If necessity is the mom of innovation, ‘simply because’ is its father.”
E-textiles are nonetheless within the toddler part, and Trusty hopes to encourage others to experiment with e-textile circuits.
The Bling Bling Board: Arvind SA
Arvind SA is a giant fan of the basic Join 4 board recreation and infrequently performs along with his pal, Sangeetha, at board recreation cafés.
He wanted a strategy to play Join 4 with Sangeetha with out going to a café, with out dropping the expertise of taking part in in individual. So, he designed On the Go Connect4, a transportable, touch-sensitive board recreation that may be performed anyplace, even at the hours of darkness.
On the Go Connect4 consists of a 7×7 RGB board with an ESP32 MCU and two contact controllers embedded in a pixel artwork body. It makes use of the Pillars of Creation {photograph}, some LEDs, and a diffuser for a surprising, glowing star impact. It might show pixel artwork hosted on a distant server as nicely.
Arvind says he and Sangeetha have been taking part in a couple of board video games, and so they find it irresistible. He has been a member of the Hackster group for 2 years and appreciates the “willingness of the group to assist and nurture others.”
Providing sensible suggestions from expertise, he advises PCB designers to maintain their designs modular, print at full scale for footprint checks, and “be prepared for some touch-ups.”
The Final RestoMod: Jakob Krantz
Jakob Kranz discovered a brand new objective for previous gear by upgrading his energy provide with trendy, easily-accessible outputs.
The retro Agilent 6626A energy provide makes use of GPIB for management and programming, a legacy interface uncommon in trendy gear. Kranz found an open supply Arduino-based controller for interfacing with IEEE488 GPIB gadgets over USB. Impressed by the venture, he created a GPIB-to-UART adapter to ship instructions to the ability provide and route the rear panel outputs to a brand new entrance panel.
This “trendy management interface for an previous energy provide” has a pair of USB-C host connectors, a USB-A connector that routes energy from the 6626A, a USB swap for altering hosts, and 4 LEDs to point lively output terminals. It additionally provides a contact interface for sending GPIB instructions to the ability provide.
Kranz is an embedded software program engineer who self-learnt {hardware} improvement, and likes looking “cool tasks” by the Hackster group. He makes use of his now-favorite energy provide to energy his open supply tasks like ZSWatch.
The Unofficial Open {Hardware} Summit Badge: Manzel Sleet
Most PCB producers, together with PCBWay, now supply direct full-color printing on boards. It’s carried out with UV printers and provides extra vibrant colours than conventional silk display printing, making it nice for wearable tasks like badges.
Manzel Sleet — an electronics and {hardware} safety fanatic from Singapore — designed a full-color PCB badge with a reputation card show. Sleet’s badge has his title reduce out from the board’s define and set towards a vibrant, retro background.
Board Designer Grand Prize: Arnov Sharma
Arnov Sharma is a mechanical engineer from India and a giant fan of retro recreation emulation. His transportable Snake recreation console received the grand prize for the Board Designer Competitors.
The console is constructed on the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 with an RGB 64 x 32 matrix panel from Waveshare. It has 4 buttons for shifting the pixelated snake across the show, and a 3.7V 2600mAh battery in the back of the gadget, which powers the Pico 2 and the matrix show. Writing the code for controlling the snake was by far the toughest a part of the venture, based on Sharma.
He found Hackster in 2017 whereas engaged on a venture in faculty, and the group has helped him remodel his free time right into a “playground for innovation.”
He advises starting PCB designers to be taught 3D modeling software program, no matter their specialization. He additionally recommends an inquisitive method to studying — taking aside “radios, toys, and equipment to know how they perform and what components are used.”
The Murphy’s Regulation Survivor: Yoganandham
In his first job as an electronics engineer, Yoganandham discovered a pointy “disconnect between theoretical data and sensible implementation.” The Pi Hub Growth Equipment was created for his youthful self, who was “desirous to be taught however intimidated by advanced {hardware} setups.”
Pi Hub is a beginner-friendly platform to simplify sensor integration, help speedy prototyping, and assist present a studying pathway for younger engineers.
Yoganandham hopes the built-in breadboard, plug-and-play design, Raspberry Pi interface, and Python help will assist bridge “the hole between educational studying and trade expectations.
Changing into a Board Designer
The Board Designer Competitors winners all emphasize the significance of studying, both by means of instruction or trial and error. Translating concepts to circuits and code is a posh course of that requires cautious planning and iteration.
Finding out present open {hardware} tasks is an effective way to be taught digital designs. You can begin with the tasks within the newbie class. Glad hacking!
