Newsletters

From Veteran PCB Designers to Next Gen Innovators - July 2018

From Veteran PCB Designers to Next Gen Innovators - July 2018 OnTrack Newsletter July 2018 VOL. 2 No 4 Welcome to the July edition of the Altium OnTrack Newsletter! In Rock Stars and Superheroes, we talk with veteran PCB Designer Bill Brooks, who has been designing boards since 1969. In Next Gen Designers, we introduce you to the WARR Hyperloop team from the Technical University of Munich, who won the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition II in 2017, and broke the world record as well! In the OnTrack video Read Article

WARR Hyperloop Pushes Last Year’s Design Concept Even Further

Elon Musk's WARR Hyperloop SpaceX Team Pushes Last Year’s Design Concept Even Further WARR Hyperloop team with Elon Musk after their 2017 win of the Hyperloop Pod competition II. Judy Warner: Please share briefly about the history of the WARR Hyperloop and the Technical University of Munich. Martin Riedel: WARR Hyperloop started out as a group of six students in the fall of 2015 and has since grown to nearly 40 students that compete in the SpaceX Hyperloop Competition every year. WARR Hyperloop is part of a larger student Read Article

Bill Brooks Accelerates Design-based Over Tool-based Curriculum

Bill Brooks Accelerates Design-based Over Tool-based Curriculum Judy Warner: How long have you been designing PCBs and what led you to the profession? Bill Brooks: I’ve been designing boards since about 1970. My father introduced me to electronics. He was an aerospace professional working in R&D at Hughes Aircraft Company, UCSD, and later at Aerospace Incorporated. He decided to open up a printed circuit shop out of our garage in Vista, CA while I was still in junior high school. In 1969 he taught my brothers Read Article

The Power of Assistive Technologies & Design for Assembly OnTrack Newsletter - June 2018

The Power of Assistive Technologies & Design for Assembly OnTrack Newsletter - June 2018 OnTrack Newsletter June 2018 VOL. 2 No 3 Welcome to the June edition of the Altium OnTrack newsletter! In this edition, you will be both impressed and inspired by some very young innovators who are profoundly changing people’s lives by designing and building medical assistive devices. In Design Like a Girl, you will meet Mary Elizabeth McCulloch and learn about her speech-generation device startup, Project Vive. In Makerspace, you’ll read about Read Article

Competitive Exoskeleton by Project March from the Delft Technical University Dream Team

Competitive Exoskeleton by Project March from the Delft Technical University Dream Team Judy Warner: Robbert, please tell us about your major at Delft Technical University and your role at Project March. Robbert de Lange: I’m studying civil engineering and my role on the Project March team is Acquisition and PR. Presently, I have taken off a full year of studies to focus full-time on Project March. Warner: What motivated you to take a full year off of your studies to invest in Project March? De Lange: Beyond all the academic Read Article

Mary Elizabeth McCulloch Developed Voz Box and Project Vive

Mary Elizabeth McCulloch Developed Voz Box and Project Vive Judy Warner: It’s so nice to talk with you, Mary Elizabeth! Please share your background, education and what inspired you to choose engineering as a vocation. Mary Elizabeth McCulloch: I was always good at science and math and I graduated from Penn State University with a biomedical degree in 2016. Both of my parents were very inspirational in my choice to pursue engineering. My Dad studied physics in college and is now an engineer who Read Article

OnTrack Newsletter May 2018

OnTrack Newsletter May 2018 On Track Newsletter May 2018 VOL. 2 No 2 Welcome to the May edition of the Altium OnTrack Newsletter! AltiumLive 2018: ANNUAL PCB DESIGN SUMMIT is coming in October to sunny San Diego, California and pre-registration is now open! By pre-registering now, you will qualify for a 10% early-bird discount once registration officially opens in June (Stay tuned for more information about our European conference). Once again, we will be featuring Read Article

Engineers Build A New Car From the Ground Up

Engineers Show Us How to Build A New Car From the Ground Up Rose Hulman FSAE Car Judy Warner: Tell us about your team, what you make, and where you compete. Anthony Lin: We are the Rose Grand Prix Engineering team from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and we design, build, and race a Formula style (open wheel open cockpit) race car from scratch every year. This year marks our 7th year in the competition with RGP-7 (name of our new car). We compete in the Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Read Article

Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing Tips from Electronics Expert Duane Benson

Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing Tips from Electronics Expert Duane Benson Judy Warner: Duane, please share briefly about your background in the electronics industry. Duane Benson: I first burned my fingers with a soldering iron when I was about fourteen. Though I was formally trained and started my career in software development, my first love has always been electronics. My early hardware projects included an electronic stethoscope used to listen through walls for termites chewing on wood, and a caller ID device Read Article

The Anniversary Edition OnTrack Newsletter April 2018

The Anniversary Edition OnTrack Newsletter April 2018 OnTrack Newsletter April 2018 VOL. 2 No 1 Welcome to the one-year anniversary edition of the Altium^® OnTrack newsletter! In celebration, our team decided to make this the reader’s choice edition by sharing the top three most read articles from Rock Stars and Superheroes and Makerspace for this past year. We also have a brand new video by Ben Jordan on Multi-board: Partitioning and Planning, and a fresh batch of Brain Food and Regional News below Read Article

Ambitious Students, Makers and Innovators

Ambitious Students, Makers and Innovators In the number three spot is a solar car team from the University of Waterloo in Toronto, Canada: The Midnight Sun Solar Car team. Relive the guts and the glory of this ambitious team. Congratulations, Midnight Sun Solar Team. Thank you for your pursuit of excellence and being an inspiration for our readers! Taking the number two spot is the New Jersey Institute of Technology SAE Baja team that earned first place in the endurance race, and 13th Read Article

Three Exceptional Professional PCB Designers

Three Exceptional Professional PCB Designers I've had the opportunity to interview several exceptional professionals in PCB Design this past year, which includes interviewing this popular group of engineers. Here are the most popular articles in our Professional PCB Designers series: In the number three spot is a beloved professional designer, BSEE, and a CID Master Instructor who also has a passion for golfing... Cherie Litson. Congratulations Cherie and thank you for contributing so much Read Article

Flex Cost Drivers, Solar Car Drivers and DFM OnTrack Newsletter March 2018

Flex Cost Drivers, Solar Car Drivers and DFM OnTrack Newsletter March 2018 On Track Newsletter March 2018 VOL. 1 No 12 Welcome to the March edition of the Altium^® OnTrack Newsletter. We have some exceptional content for you this month—so read on! In Design Like a Girl, I interview PCB fabrication veteran and flex expert Tara Dunn of OMNI PCB who will share some insight into cost drivers for flex and rigid-flex circuits. In Next Gen Designers, I interview the Sunswift Solar-Electric team from the University of New South Read Article

Introduction to Multiboard PCB Design with Ben Jordan Join Ben Jordan in an Introduction to Multiboard PCB Design. In this episode, Part One of a Multipart Series, you will learn different approaches to Partitioning a PCB and Planning a Multiboard PCB Design Layout. See All OnTrack Newsletters here. Watch Video

10:05 Getting Started with Design for Manufacturing [DFM] Getting Started with Design for Manufacturing is an Episode of the OnTrack Whiteboard Series. Join David Marrakchi as he gives an Introduction into Design for Manufacturing. How can you save 40% of time per production cycle and lots of money spent on re-spins? Learn some easy tricks that will help you get your design right the first time - every time. View the complete DFM Guidebook by David Marrakchi here. See All OnTrack Newsletters here. Watch Video

Student-Designed Solar Cars from Down Under

Sunswift: Student-Designed Solar Cars from Down Under Judy Warner: Please share how your team was started, how many cars you have built to date, and give us an overview of Violet. Kristian Bojidarov: Sunswift is a team of undergraduate students from the University of New South Wales who design, build and race the world’s most advanced solar-electric vehicles. With the knowledge gained since Sunswift’s founding in 1995, the team has recently completed the manufacture of our sixth vehicle, Violet Read Article

Getting a Handle on Flex Cost Drivers

Getting a Handle on Flex Cost Drivers Judy Warner: You've been in the board fabrication business for over 20 years. What factors do you see as contributing to the rise in flex and rigid-flex designs? Tara Dunn: I believe that space, weight and packaging are the primary factors driving designs to flex and rigid-flex technology. For customers that are already using flex and rigid-flex, I am seeing an increase in their percentage of new designs using flex and I am also noticing an Read Article