Gifted Education Research and Resource Information Center

Tomorrow’s electronics engineers take their first steps with Altium Designer

Rows of computers line one of the electrical engineering labs at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Each screen is brightly lit and Altium Designer software features prominently on each and every one of the screens. The students are buzzing with the excitement of a new class. At first, there is nothing extraordinary about the room. In fact, it looks like any other regular university lab - except for one very distinctive difference. It is occupied by 16 gifted students all between 11 and 14 years old.

The workshop is run through the Gifted Education Research and Resource and Information Center (GERRIC) program. Since being established 17 years ago, GERRIC has been developing educational workshops that cater for the highly developed and inquisitive minds of the gifted. The workshop, ‘Digital Electronics and How Computers Think,’ is sponsored by Altium Limited, which has donated its Altium Designer unified electronics design software, and desktop NanoBoard reconfigurable development platform.

The workshop is presented by Altium’s Marty Hauff, Manager, Altium Designer Applied Technologies. Mr Hauff is one of Altium’s more familiar faces – he creates and presents all of Altium’s training videos.

Mr Hauff is engaging, and the students easily follow the concepts and principles of electronics. OR-Gates, AND-gates and so on - the students fervently pick up the principles. Hands are raised, ideas shared and the classroom is dynamic. And unlike any other class, whenever a question is asked, several hands are thrust into the air. It is much more dynamic than most classrooms because these gifted students working with university material carry with them an unbounded energy and enthusiasm to learn.

This works in the students favour. There is a lot of ground to be covered in a very short space of time. The students only have two days to design and build their very own traffic light controller.

From schematic, to design, to implementation in a unified solution

“I’m assuming a blank canvas” remarks Mr Hauff. “I need to teach them everything up to a first year digital engineering degree.”

Then, to his point, Mr. Hauff tells his students to “start up Altium Designer”. The students are starting their first digital design before recess!

There’s a bit of a ruckus when the students realise what has just been said. They know it’s when it all becomes real. This isn’t play-time or arts and crafts. Altium Designer is a professional electronics design tool, and organisations such as NASA and Cochlear use this software every day to create ground-breaking electronic designs.

Then adding to the excitement, Mr Hauff says “We are about to cram into two days, what it normally takes professionals six days to do.”

The students start wiring up a digital design and it is interesting to watch how the students take on the challenge. By experimentation, they flick the several switches on the NanoBoard and observe the changes on a row of brightly coloured LEDs. For many this is their first exposure to Boolean logic.

They become heavily engaged in the design as they explore basic logic blocks such as inverters, AND-gates, OR-gates and XOR-gates. However, one student Ben, 14, is having a little trouble. He is and tries to solve his problem rationally, a little too shy to ask for help. His design isn’t compiling onto the desktop NanoBoard and he’s not quite sure why, saying in a confused voice, “I’ve done electronics before.”

It is not until Mr Hauff comes around and explains to Ben that the grounded inputs were left floating and he had not chosen the correct symbol for his design. Making the changes quickly, Mr Hauff then leaves it to Ben to compile his design onto the desktop NanoBoard and see his design come to life.

There is a real thrill from seeing the NanoBoard light up and it is clearly the object that grabs everyone’s attention the most. The children are simply drawn to it. It’s the lights, the touch screen and the lingering question –“What does this button do?” Curiosity gets the better of most students and throughout the workshop there are random beeps and clicks from the students who cannot help but poke and prod the NanoBoard.

The class progresses and the schematics start taking on a whole new look. The students are navigating Altium Designer software with more confidence and are becoming more comfortable. Although it is challenging, with even some students commenting “my head will explode”, they are keeping up with the material and are starting to see the results.

The students know they are dealing with university material, but when asked whether electronics design should be taught at school, most feel confident senior students completing their final years of high school could manage it.

Lauren, 14, says “I think it could be done. However, it should probably be reserved for people completing their HSC [New South Wale Higher School Certificate].”

Ben, 14, also agrees, saying, “it could be introduced to older students.”

This might be attributed to several reasons. These students have grown up with their own computers. Connected devices have infiltrated their homes and schools.

However, the greater influence though is the high level of design abstraction in Altium Designer. The graphical user interface (GUI) raises electronics design to a ‘what you see is what you get’ user experience. In the end, students can quickly move beyond basic electronic functionality to more complex design blocks.

Electronics designers usually take advantage of this to focus on higher levels of design functionality. Students, on the other hand, can use the same principle to quickly learn design software and develop their own innovative electronics.

Using Altium Designer – reducing design time by 60%

However, this is not to take away the pure brilliance of these students. Even 11 year-old Arisa is keeping up with the class, and she hasn’t even begun high-school yet. She has been quite diligent and has remained relatively quiet during the two-day workshop. And along with the rest of the class, she has tackled basic logic, binary numbers and Karnaugh maps – The basic building blocks of a traffic light controller, which is the ultimate design objective of the workshop.

The moment draws closer, and it almost becomes a race against the clock to finish. It was always going to be a photo-finish - this was six days’ work crammed into two. Mr Hauff takes the initiative and quickly demonstrates to the class the final steps of the design. There are a few students exclaiming “wow,” then quickly cramming up to the front of the room to see Mr Hauff’s NanoBoard light up in an ordered and familiar sequence. They quickly return to their desks, ready to complete and compile their designs.

Despite the lack of time, there is one who has finished successfully and all of the students huddle around 14 year-old Lauren. Most want to see how it works, why it works and how they can do it themselves. The students are full of questions and you can tell they love the challenge and the endless possibilities that electronics design brings.

The class concludes and the students start getting ready to go home. However, there is a question that remains. Are these teenagers the future of electronics design? And if they are, what issues will they have to tackle? They would certainly be looking at electronics design in a completely different way. Already we are seeing a shift in electronics design where device intelligence takes precedence over hardware configuration. And as electronics get smaller and smarter, it will be interesting to see how these students change electronics in the modern and connected society they will inherit.

Most of these students have not yet decided upon a career. For instance when Lauren is asked this question, she simply replies “I’m not sure. I think I will be electronics engineer… or maybe an architect.”

In any case, the two days she has spent learning digital logic has opened her eyes to the bright future of electronics design.