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Best Practices for Using DNI/DNP Entries in Your PCB BOM You can use the DNI/DNP designation on components in your PCB BOM to create design variants as long as you’ve created your layout correctly. Read Article

Testing the Limits of Your LDO's Efficiency The efficiency of your LDO isn’t a fixed value, but neither is your maximum current output. Read about your LDO efficiency curve to better see why LDOs have narrow operating ranges. Read Article

What PCB Copper Thickness Should You Use? Do you know what PCB copper thickness you should use in your circuit board? Learn more about copper thickness and what it means for your fabrication process in this guide. Read Article

The Anatomy of Your Schematic Netlist, Ports, and Net Names Your schematic netlist will create the link between components as you build your schematic sheets. See how your schematic sheets enable usage of net names and ports to help you stay organized. Read Article

How to Compare PCB Manufacturing Services for Your Board Do you know what to look for in PCB manufacturing services? Here are some of the important points to consider before placing your next order. Read Article

Designing a 4 Layer PCB Stackup With 50 Ohm Impedance Your 4-layer PCB stackup with 50 Ohm impedance will constrain your trace width to sit within a specific range of values. Read Article

1:39 How to Request Parts from Upverter's Parts Concierge Watch Video

Ambitious Students, Makers and Innovators In the number three spot is a solar car team from the University of Waterloo in Toronto, Canada: The Midnight Sun Solar Car team. Relive the guts and the glory of this ambitious team. Congratulations, Midnight Sun Solar Team. Thank you for your pursuit of excellence and being an inspiration for our readers! Taking the number two spot is the New Jersey Institute of Technology SAE Baja team that earned first place in the endurance race, and 13th Read Article

3:17:14 2018-04-17 12.05 Catch up Ben and Rupert Re CM Watch Video

3:39:34 2018-04-16 08.02 Ben and Stefan L catch up Watch Video

Student-Designed Solar Cars from Down Under Judy Warner: Please share how your team was started, how many cars you have built to date, and give us an overview of Violet. Kristian Bojidarov: Sunswift is a team of undergraduate students from the University of New South Wales who design, build and race the world’s most advanced solar-electric vehicles. With the knowledge gained since Sunswift’s founding in 1995, the team has recently completed the manufacture of our sixth vehicle, Violet Read Article

Finding Circuit Design Software Online: Search Parameters and Powerful Tools Have you seen the movie “Sully,” the story of US Airways flight 1549’s incredible landing on the Hudson River in 2009? When director Clint Eastwood was preparing for the film he interviewed Vincent Lombardi, the captain of the first ferry boat to arrive at the scene of the accident. After walking Eastwood through the events of that day, Lombardi was surprised when the director said; “I want to use you.” Eastwood must have realized after listening Read Article

Left Hand Robotics Autonomous Snowbot Judy Warner: Shane, so nice to meet you. Before we get started, I just had to ask what the story is behind your unique name? Shane Zinner: In this area, there was an American Indian Chief Niwot or Left Hand (-ed) (c. 1825–1864) who was a tribal leader of the Southern Arapaho people and played an important part in the history of Colorado. Many 'Left Hand' things, such as Left Hand Canyon, Left Hand Brewery, and the town of Niwot, Colorado were Read Article

SPI Versus I2C: How to Choose the Best Protocol for Your Memory Chips I was going shoe-hunting the other day and realized exactly why I don’t buy shoes all that often: all of the parameters. I was looking for sneakers specifically so there were metrics for comfort, bounciness, durability, wet-resistance, weight, toe-size, arch-support, and more. Sometimes it feels like you need to have a graduate degree just to find the right shoe for your foot. That’s what I call an overburden of information. You will deal with a Read Article

Princeton Racing Electrical Team and the Formula Hybrid Competition Judy Warner: It is a pleasure to meet you both. Jasper, let’s begin with you. Will you please share what the Princeton Racing Electric team does, how the team was formed, and in what year? Jasper Gebhardt: Princeton Racing Electric is a team of students who design, build, and race single-seat electric race cars. We compete in the Formula SAE collegiate design competitions, in particular, the Formula Hybrid competition. The team was founded by Read Article

Azevedo the ITAndroids: Humanoid Robot Soccer Team Judy Warner: How long has the ITAndroids team been in existence, and how did it get started? Arthur Azevedo: The ITAndroids team was created in 2005 by Jackson Matsura. Back then he was a masters student, now he is a professor in the electronics department. Two undergraduate students and another master’s student joined the team. They won the Latin America RoboCup (LARC) 2D Soccer Simulation that year. They quickly became one of the Latin American Read Article

Frank Duggan: Micro Architecture and Aspiring to MIT Judy Warner: What first got you interested in developing your own microarchitecture using discrete logic? Frank Duggan: Without really knowing the specifics, it was something I'd wanted to do since I was little. I was obsessed with my Snap Circuits electronics kit, and liked to challenge myself to build circuits that do various things. At some point, I decided that building a computer was the ultimate challenge. This was probably because I found Read Article