Workshops
Every Monday in TBA, we have a workshop run in conjunction with the Electric Racing and IEEE clubs. These workshops are a carefully curated set of topics we believe students need to know to be successful in their engineering careers, but aren't typically taught in class.
Below is the list of workshops this semester along with dates and short descriptions. Absolutely no experience is required. Please sign up!
This Semester's Schedule
| Date | Topic |
|---|---|
| 1/27/25 | Tape Measure Yagi |
| 2/3/25 | Schematic Capture |
| 2/10/25 | SPICE Circuit Simulation |
| 2/24/25 | PCB Design |
| 3/10/25 | Intro to soldering |
| 3/13/25 | Intro to soldering (in Hayden 503) |
| 3/17/25 | Advanced Soldering |
| 3/24/25 | Intro to Git |
| 3/31/25 | TBA |
Workshop Descriptions
Yagi Antenna Build
In this workshop, you will build a fully functional directional yagi antenna using PVC piping and cut up tape measures! This serves as an excellent introduction to radio and antenna design.
Schematic Capture
Learn how to design a schematic using KiCAD software. Designing a schematic of a circuit is the first step in developing a circuit board. This workshop begins our series on PCB development. You will leave the workshop having drawn a pre-engineered schematic for use in the PCB design workshop.
SPICE Circuit Simulation
Using the schematic you designed in the previous workshop, you will learn how to simulate the circuit using SPICE software. This will allow you to test your circuit before you build it!
PCB Design with KiCAD
This workshop will take you through the process of designing a printed circuit board. You'll learn about the different types of component footprints, layers, routing, traces and more! No previous workshop attendance is needed.
Intro to soldering
Learn an essential electrical engineering skill, soldering! We provide all of the materials and a custom instructional circuit that you will assemble and test! Uses the much easier to solder "through hole" components.
Advanced Soldering
While through hole components may be good enough for hobby projects, most modern devices use SMD aka "surface mount" components. You will once again build a custom circuit, this time with SMD components!
Embedded Development
Embedded devices are everywhere today. In this workshop you will implement some simple code on a wireless club custom embedded board using a variety of protocols.
Bare Metal Embedded Development on STM32
Arduino isn't really used in industry, so what is? Well that would be the STM32 platform. We'll first learn the super nitty gritty using assembly to interface with familiar sensors and input devices, and then learn how to generate an embedded C HAL (hardware abstraction layer) for easier development work. No experience required!
Past Workshops
Below is a selection of workshop presentations from previous years.