Looks like a neat project. My ExpressPCB does not open the pcb & sch=20
files. What should I be using?

On 11/10/2015 12:12 PM, John J. McDonough wrote:
> Just Sunday I was at Barnes & Noble and the local high school robotics
> club were demonstrating their projects there.  They had some very
> impressive (large) robots.  I suspect the club must have had significant
> funding, probably from local foundations.  I don't have any contact
> information for them but it was the Dow High School in Midland,
> Michigan.,
>
> I am involved in the electronics club of another high school in town,
> although we don't limit membership to only the high school.  I have been
> teaching the kids PIC programming and they are taking to it like ducks
> to water.
>
> They have already built up the traditional blink an LED circuit on
> solderless breadboards and programmed them.  It was incredible how
> little guidance it took.
> https://gitlab.com/33EV-GM1/dsPIC-presentations/raw/master/02-StartingWit=
hMPLAB/02-StartingWithMPLAB.pdf
> https://gitlab.com/33EV-GM1/dsPIC-presentations/raw/master/03-AdvancedBli=
nkAnLED/03-AdvancedBlink.pdf
>
> Tonight they are going to build up a development board they will use to
> go farther
> https://gitlab.com/33E-simple/dsPIC-EL-GM
> https://gitlab.com/E-WCC/dsPIC-EL_Build_Instructions/raw/master/tmp/en-US=
/pdf/dsPIC-EL-GM--Construction_Instructions-en-US.pdf
>
> In our case we chose the PIC rather than the Arduino because part of
> their objective is to run experiments in a high altitude balloon and
> size/weight/power considerations make the PIC more attractive.  We will
> probably use a Raspberry Pi for some ground based components.
>
> The club was able to get some generous donations from a local Rotary
> Club and similar outfits so there is sufficient resource to provide the
> club members with the necessary bits and pieces.  We meet in the Physics
> lab so there is space to build stuff.  We did get a fair number of
> soldering stations but the number of members who showed up exceeded our
> expectations so we have a bit of an issue there.
>
> We did start out with an exercise to fish out what the kids were really
> interested in doing.  It was a bit surprising that the big hitter was to
> "build something then program it".
>
> The kids were grinning ear to ear when they made their LED flash, even
> bigger grins when I gave them more parts and told them to just play.
> The older kids have often had C++ in class, younger ones sometimes VB.
> But the more experienced kids help out the younger ones.
>
> Kids these days are really, really smart if you give them a chance.
>
> --McD

--=20
John Ferrell W8CCW
    Julian NC 27283
  It is better to walk alone,
than with a crowd going the wrong direction.
                   --Diane Grant


--=20
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