Hardware

Hardware tracking

Keep a JOURNAL.md in your GitHub repo and add an entry roughly every hour you work.

Each entry should have:

• what you worked on
• roughly how long you worked
• a photo or screenshot of your progress where you can
• anything that went wrong, changed, or what you're doing next

It does NOT need to be an essay. The point is that when your project gets reviewed, we can follow the build and see where your tracked hours went.

Example

## Sept 28 - 1 hour

Wired the XIAO RP2040 to the display and got it powered on. Spent ages figuring out why the screen wasn't responding and realised I had SDA/SCL backwards.

[photo]

Next im going to get the actual display code working.

What every hardware submission needs

1. GitHub repo
2. README explaining what the project is and how it works
3. JOURNAL.md showing progress roughly every hour
4. Photos/videos of the project or the current build
5. All the relevant source/design files
6. BOM where needed
7. Schematics/wiring diagrams where needed
8. Firmware/code where needed

You don't need a live URL for hardware. A link to your repo is fine.

BOM

You need a Bill of Materials for hardware projects, unless the whole project is just a 3D model/print.

Your BOM needs:

• every component you used, including stuff you already had
• specific part names

Good: "Seeed Studio XIAO RP2040"
Bad: "Microcontroller"

PCB projects

If your project uses a PCB, submit:

• the schematic
• the PCB design
• all the original, editable PCB project files

For KiCad that's .kicad_pro, .kicad_sch and .kicad_pcb.

Exported images or PDFs of the PCB on their own won't be accepted.

Electronics without a PCB

If you've wired components together without a PCB/schematic, include a wiring diagram.

If you have a PCB but there's extra electronics connected outside it, document those connections too.

3D printing / CAD

If you made custom 3D models, include the editable CAD files, like .STEP, .STP or .F3D.

You can include STLs too, but an STL on its own isn't enough when there's an editable source model.

If the whole project is just a 3D model/print, you don't need a BOM unless you used other components.

Firmware

If your project needs firmware to do its main thing, include the firmware source code.

If you're still in the design/prototype stage, the firmware can be basic and doesn't have to be fully tested yet.