The picsquirt is a simple cheap usb pic programmer designed by me (peter m
green,plugwash) it was built at the request of one of my lecturers to the
following requirements

1: program the 18F452 and 18F252 (as that is what the uni tended to use) and
the usb pics (so one PICSQUIRT could be used to program another)
2: use USB (since paralell and serial are fast dissapearing)
3: be cheap in terms of parts cost.
4: be constructable by students.
5: be used as an in circuit programmer with the same connector as the ICD2

the device uses a PIC18F2550. A 2455 should also work and was used in early
prototypes but turned out to be unavailible from our regular suppliers. If
you are building your own board and you don't care about size you could also
use a 4455 or 4550. As far as targets go i've added every 18 series pic that
i have here and any 18 series pic should be easy to add support for. Other
series should be possible with new firmware.

see http://www.p10link.net/picsquirt/ for more details

I would like to enter it in the design contest unfortunately the PCB design
was done using altium designer (on the universities systems), do you think i
should re-do it in a more easilly availible PCB package and if so what do i
reccomend i use? the free version of eagle?

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