This is my first time ever engaging with electronics design! I started with selecting an tool for electronic design automation (EDA), similar to CAD, but for electronics specifically. I intially considered using Eagle since I used Fusion 360 in previous weeks. However, I found KiCad to be a more user-friendly to use and having a wider range of tutorials available.The bulk of my time this week was spent on gaining some foundational knowledge in electronics as well as basic use of this software.
To go about designing the schematic, I first selected my microcontroller: a Raspberry Pi Pico. This microcontroller is built into a development board, so I wasn't sure whether or not this was appropriate for this week's assignment of designing our own printed ciruit board (PCB), but it was one I explored previously and thought I could build it into something else to expand its capabilities.
The vision for this project was originally laid out in the week focused on embedded programming. Using Wokwi, I created a program for flashing an LED using morse code. A receiver would be able to pick up and interpret a hidden message, which could even be encrypted in the code using an algorithm to take it a step further.
To begin, I opened the schematic editor and started by finding all of the parts that would be needed. I decided to focus solely on building out the schematic for the morse transmitter this week, waiting on the receiver for potentially our input/output weeks.
I connected the wires using explanations by and help from ChatGPT, but ran out of time to clean up the layout. I didn't know where the parts would go initially, so it became disorganized. This is still very much a work in progress.
I ran the Electronics Rules Checker and received many error messages, all of which I need to go back through and fix. Still working on this...
I moved over to the PCB layout editor in order to see what this looks like. I didn't move forward with connecting the components with traces because I have too many problems at this point. Still working!
