Attempting to steady my hands while soldering the tiny components
This week I worked on milling and soldering/assembling the PCB I designed in Week 5 for my fish feeder final project. While the KiCad design process was challenging, exporting as a Gerber and the actual milling turned out to be much more straightforward, thanks to Alec's help with the mill setup at EECS.
The real challenge came with soldering. I had never worked with such a small board before, and my hands were literally shaking while trying to place the components. Quentin, Anthony, and Nick were incredibly patient in helping me through the process. Despite making several small soldering mistakes (including forgetting to solder the top of the XIAO - which surprisingly didn't cause issues until much later), the board worked!
Attempting to steady my hands while soldering the tiny components
The completed board!
This week taught me several important lessons: