A friend of mine is expecting to have to design a simple 555 blink an LED circuit into an actual fabricated circuit board for the lab class next semester. The current instructor has been basing the project off of Eagle for a significant time in past history.
Any recommendations on how to present information to the instructor to consider using KiCad?
Are there any attempts by the KiCad community to introduce KiCad into college curriculums?
I have heard of a couple of courses using the Getting to Blinky series as an intro, but I actually believe that was because the course was about circuits and they wanted to hand off the layout portion to an online resource.
Does your friend’s course focus on actual layout or just all things electronics?
(My last personal experience with college coursework, curricula, etc, was 15 years ago when I finally completed an M.S. in Electrical Engineering after working on it for 30 years, so I won’t claim up-to-date knowledge.)
The response from @ChrisGammell probably summarizes the prevailing attitude: PCB layout - like soldering, or running a drill press, or using a scientific calculator (or sliderule?), or using business software like spreadsheets and word processors - may be a useful skill to have, but it’s not part of the curriculum. It’s a task that “real” design engineers typically hand off to specialized technicians. PCB layout only appears as an afterthought to a circuit design course, or a Senior Project course.
I would respond by pointing out that you could say the same thing about learning the syntax of a programming language, but colleges don’t hesitate to offer for-credit courses that teach C++, Java, (Fortran?, Ada?, PL/1?), etc.
Dale
Re-writing course material is a non-trivial undertaking. As is learning a new EDA (for the instructor). Your friend will want to keep in mind that this is time for which the instructor is not paid and takes away from their other activities on which they are evaluated or, alternatively, from their time outside of work. If s/he wants to just use KiCad themselves for the project, then a simple e-mail to the instructor asking permission would be enough.
If, instead, they are hoping to have the instructor move the whole class over to KiCad, then they should be willing to help re-design the instructional material/handouts/lecture notes/example projects. Many departments have funds to assist with “instructional updates”. If your friend’s instructor is game, they may be able to work out funding for a part-time job over the summer transitioning the class to KiCad.
This is very unlikely to happen for next semester but they might be at the right time for planning next year.
A good course will focus on the underlying principles not the syntax of some language. (There is a difference between learning c++ or learning object oriented programming. The former is what tutorials are there for. The later is what only experience can teach. This is also where a good teacher can safe you some time -> the reason of why one would take part in a course like this.)
The same holds true for any design course. A good course will be valid no matter what tools you later use. (Meaning after an electronics design course you should be able to design a product no matter what tools the company you work for uses. Of course after doing a tutorial for the particular tool used.)
You are however correct that a lot of schools (even universities) really only teach tools. (This might even vary from department to department.) A lot of students do prefer it that way as they can then tell the recruiters of a company that they already worked with tool x. (What they forget is that tool x might not be as widely used as their teachers let them believe.) It is also a lot less effort to learn a tool than to understand its underlying principles. (Compare for example understanding why FEM simulation works and what its limitations are to simply using a FEM simulation software and hoping that the result is somewhat relevant.)
Yes, that is true, Rene! Your examples demonstrate that the underlying concept applies to much more than programming languages, but I recently came across an article that expressed the idea well: I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You. His concluding paragraph reinforces your point:
You’re teaching (kids that) the world is full of interesting things to discover. . . . When we force kids to learn syntax, we reinforce the idea that if something is not a blatantly employable skill, it’s not valuable. Adults can learn syntax. Only kids can learn to embrace curiosity.
In many cases it’s difficult to teach principles without having a tool to demonstrate and investigate those principles. I will confess that at some points in my formal education I concentrated more on learning the tool than learning the underlying concepts, and at some points I picked up a lot of concepts when I thought I was only learning about a tool. Perhaps @Sprig’s original question should be re-phrased as:
Do any members of the KiCAD community know of a college curriculum that teaches PCB layout and design? Do any of those schools do it with KiCAD?
Dale
I have been pushing for Kicad to be used by the students in the Embedded systems class where I work (as a Electronics technician/instructor at a London university). Version 5 has finally been allowed on the PC’s in my lab and now all of the students are encouraged (mainly by me) to use it for their Final/Major projects.I have asked the students to watch the youtube video’s produced by Digilent. When the Contextual Electronics video’s are updated for version 5.02 I will also include these as well. I work in the Design department of the college. The Electronics department have a don’t care attitude to PCB design as they are more theoretical in their approach.
I’ve been using Kicad since about 2007 or so and helped to translate the French help files into English around the same type. Got my name on the credits as well.
I went back to school because my company paid for it. This was as the PC craze was hitting full stride and you could go into a local bookstore and they had rows of computer books on just one program. Whole sections devoted to computers and related topics and software. For me it was as much fun to learn the software as it was the subject sometimes.
And we are doing it with mixed success. Like @dchisholm said, PCB layout is a useful skill for an electrical engineer, but it’s not part of our curriculum. We as the engineers doing the hands-on training with the students decided to switch to KiCad and the teachers/professors just went: “Okay, whatever gets the job done”. I don’t think it would have been like that if one of them would have had to rewrite his course material.
KiCad is now deployed on all classroom computers available to the students. This and the simple statement “use KiCad or we can’t help you because we do not know EDA software XYZ and are as lost as you” helped a lot to cut down a plethora of questions and we finally could focus on “real” problems.
The other EDA package that we now actively use is Proteus because it does proper co-simulation of microprocessor code and circuit designs.
KiCad can import Eagle Projects.
Am I missing something? Just use KiCad if wanted, than import/export in Eagle formats. I’ve not done it, but the feature is there in KiCad.
Except KiCad doesn’t export Eagle.
Even with software that can import/export a 3rd party file format, it isn’t perfect. LibreOffice can import and export MS Office files, but because the translation isn’t perfect the content layout can get weirdly formatted requiring cleanup at both ends.
Not ignoring you, I just don’t talk to him during the work week. He should start that new class after the first of the new year. Then he will have the course materials and objectives to share with me.
One thing that is interesting, is that he is not able to run the newest version of Eagle on his Intel Linux machine. Not even the Windoze version will run in a VirtualBox on his machine. Point being that if the school has problems with running Eagle on the classroom computers, it might become a “no-brainer” to switch to KiCad.
I’ll update the thread with more detail after the start of the new year.
HAH! He emailed me tonight!
I feel like I’m using micrsoft PAINT! IT"S THAT BAD!!!
Seriously! And this is THE latest version 9.2.2
Board layout, almost as bad! And the 3d viewer? HA! It’s online fusion360, you have to create another online account,
Is an experienced “student” trying to take every advantage to get the magic piece of paper with the highest score; and will provide the Eagle files if required for successful completion of the class.
ON EDIT:
Oh, to get it running in virtualbox, on the host system virtual box settings, display, screen, Acceleration, uncheck Enable 3D Acceleration.
That was the case >20 years ago, but in the relentless drive to reduce support headcount, these “technicians” have become an endangered species in most companies.
The Universities that I passed in Brazil are like @davidsrsb said. Layout is not part of the curriculum, we still using this kind of software mainly because of the Spice model in subject like Electronic Circuits or Analog Circuits (op. amp.s, transistors).
In some time in the course (if some visionary professor want, and always happens) the students are asked to do some simple layout (some buck / boost or op. amp. circuit based).
Some academic study groups like robotics / electric car and so on always use layout (here normally Eagle / Altium, that we still have some license). But keep the license and use OS dependent software is been a cumbersome and we are change, gradually, to KiCad.
Also in master and PhD the students have to make them own layouts (my case). In this case I am encouraging to use KiCad.
I have almost 15 years experience with Proteus, since the the PICs, I like it and I stay ask by some features that a had there:
In eschematic (spice):
Repeate last wire connection https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1768272
Iteractive simulation https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1758234
Insheet SPICE graph https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1740318
Graph current probe indication https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1740321
In layout:
Teardrops https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/593972
Via s titching https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1731763
Curved tracks https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1577958
Area DRC https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1654571
Output GERBERs as ZIP https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1728252
Import image https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1728272
Dashed line https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1774241
My point of view, not take into account this missing features in PcbNew, KiCad is already superior to Proteus, manly because of the libraries keep by the community.
About the Spice, it is a new feature in KiCad and start well using a motor that supports PSpice models. Proteus stay interesting in Spice because of the interactive simulation and by keep PIC / AVR (Arduino) CPU models.
I keep my contribution to KiCad helping with the Portuguese translation and the thirty party tools.
That strikes me as inefficient in the short term, and counterproductive in the long run.
It has been 15 years since I worked in an organization that did design work and had more than 25 employees, so I’m not aware of trends like this. Even back then, I thought the PCB layout guy (or gal - one of the best I worked with was a female girl person of the opposite sex) was the most under-appreciated member of a product development team. Under this current trend, is PCB layout pushed onto the circuit design engineer? Or manufacturing? Or out-sourced to specialized shops and free-lancers?
Dale
I would recommend stay with 4.0.7 - It is the most stabled version so far (I have not get any bug, crash, for years). 5.0.2 still crash often, event I love it and very shiny, very encouragement by every KiCad user, including me. ngspice simulation already work way before 4.0.7 versions, just KiCad 5.x make it more friendly, and visible.
I worked in small companies in automation and integration. The layout guy had her/him value, but the companies was not big so not big money came from there.
I don’t have a solid opinion about market and companies trend because now I am just a academic (PhD student) guy. I keep in mind that the point (in academy) is teach the guidelines for layout in a solid software (KiCad is in the way to be, I think) and not be stuck in a (payed) software.
The main universities in my country are public, so we like to support some free initiatives (GNU software) and the license price is prohibitive for small companies / start-ups.
I agree with @nhatkhai v4 still more stable than v5 (for now with the v4 update life cycle ended). I keep using the Nigthly, because I like to keep my C/debug skill sharped and help the developers.
Not my own experience and any repeatable 5.0.2 crashes are going to be fixed if you report them.
I have already removed 4.0.7 from the 6 installations that I have on various OS.