Now the real excitement begins!  This week you will begin creating your board in your EDA software.  Soon you'll have a badge in hand!  And within the next several days, I expect to be able to share videos of a sample layout from Autodesk's Jorge Garcia

Prerequisites:

At this point you should have:

• Read and completed everything in the Week 6 Readme
• Read Schematic Creation
• Submitted your design in the Schematic Peer Review activity and reviewed two projects from fellow participants.

This Week

You will design a board outline and place some of the more critical parts.  You need to decide a few things -- such as board outline and battery options (we are not providing batteries for you due to shipping restraints) -- There are several options including rechargeable LiPo batteries, alkaline, and NiMH, but you need to decide how to make it happen.

Activities

• Read Designing a Layer Stack
• Read and follow Getting Ready to Route
• Read and follow Critical Part Placement
• Video Layout Examples:

1. Episode 1: Introduction https://youtu.be/NOAG85DeGo0
2. Episode 2: Analyzing the Schematic to inform Layout https://youtu.be/fxpg_Ar_o00
3. Episode 3: Making the Board outline and initial placement https://youtu.be/x2lQfl4d68Y
4. Episode 4: Finishing Placement and Routing https://youtu.be/ChJKfmxpys0
5. Episode 5: Finishing Touches and Manufacturing Data https://youtu.be/9WKNCvom9YQ

Roadmap

This week is the most exciting week of the course!  We will attempt to place critical part groups this week run traces and copper pours next week.  Then we'll talk about design rules and DFM/DFA checks!  We're close :)

Goals

• Participate in the PCB Layout Forum

EDA Program

• Place all parts in your PCB layout in appropriate part groups.  (The groups can be moved later)
• Decide and implement a battery solution