On Tue, 2015-11-10 at 15:48 -0500, John Ferrell wrote:
> Looks like a neat project. My ExpressPCB does not open the pcb & sch=20
> files. What should I be using?

I use the gEDA suite - pcb for pcbs and gschem for schematics. Mostly
cuz it's free and painless.

--McD

>=20
> 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 significan=
t
> > 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 bee=
n
> > 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-StartingW=
ithMPLAB/02-StartingWithMPLAB.pdf
> > https://gitlab.com/33EV-GM1/dsPIC-presentations/raw/master/03-AdvancedB=
linkAnLED/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 Physic=
s
> > 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 t=
o
> > "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
> --=20
> John Ferrell W8CCW
>     Julian NC 27283
>   It is better to walk alone,
> than with a crowd going the wrong direction.
>                    --Diane Grant
>=20
>=20


--=20
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