Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1093246
22 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2019 to it, and there were a lot of traces going, on so I didn't bother with that one. I wired a tran- sistor wrong, so I had cut the traces and sol- der a little wire. You only get one shot in our class, so some people's projects in the past just didn't work. I heard about one student last year where nothing worked on the board. By the grace of God, I had a few components that got the job done. Not everything worked, but it was cool to see my schematic on the board, the board back, all the components, and the final project. I went from CAD to seeing Sunstone produce my board. Johnson: Have you done anything more with PCBs since this class? Whipple: That summer, we did a posture mon- itoring device, which I got to design; it was really fun. I learned a lot from embedded sys- tems, and I had a little bit more time in the summer to make things nice and neat. I ordered it through Sunstone. It was a very simple cir- cuit that monitored your posture in a chair. We enjoyed that. Then, I might have to make a PCB for my senior design project coming up, but I'm not sure yet. Johnson: Looking at your next project, and I can see the change in your approach and the efficiency that's here already by the second pass. You figure it out and learn what not to do, and then you take that experience with you to the next design where you learn something else that's new to you. Whipple: Right. Johnson: These are great boards and solid designs. Whipple: Thanks. And the speaker you see we designed on Altium. It was a through- hole board, but it was laid out in Altium, and then it went to Sunstone and back. This was a class project as well. The speaker was a hard project—definitely more of an electric circuit design. You're dealing with analog signals, so digital is out the window, and a lot of resistors for the proper gain on the speaker. It was chal- lenging. There was one point where I dropped a metal screwdriver, and it hit two transistors and shorted them. I thought, "I have to go and find the right pair of transistors that kind of match again." Certainly, that was not the way I had planned that to go. That board was a full analog process, which was so different. Johnson: And here you are, wrapping up your degree and ready to go into the industry. You have analog experience and multiple iterations of doing PCB design experience to go along with your computer engineering degree. That's pretty solid. Whipple: Thank you. Johnson: Are you talking to companies? How is recruiting going? Whipple: It's going well. I talked to a few peo- ple here at this engineering expo, which was nice. I've made great connections from our senior design team and professors that I've worked with. I've also been a TA through a few professors. One of them has really been on my side as far as getting me plugged in. And I know some other people and opportunities I could pursue. I just had an interview with Tektronix based in Beaverton, Oregon, so that was encouraging. We'll see what comes from that. That's the most serious opportunity recently. I spoke to a couple of other companies as well. I don't know if they're looking for my particular degree, but I'm still making connec- tions. What I love about George Fox is that sometimes, people get hired right off their senior design teams. We also have the oppor- tunity for mock interviews with other individ- uals, and sometimes real job offers come from those mock interviews. Johnson: I'm sure that helps. Good luck with your interviews, and thanks for your time. Whipple: Thank you. DESIGN007