Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1153097
14 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2019 those who really wanted to get into the indus- try to have personal access to them. I showed them examples of boards and let them solder some through-hole components to some donated boards we had in the classroom. I introduced them to Ohm's law, and how to calculate the current in a conductor and use that to safely size it so as not to damage the board under load. We also worked with local board and assem- bly shops and arranged tours so that the stu- dents could see the other side of the process: Gerber generation, etching, drilling, plating, solder mask, paste mask, silkscreen legends, and the steps that the manufactures had to go through to make a board. Thanks to Hallmark Circuits, Crown Circuits, Hughes Circuits, Cir- cuit Logic, U.S. Circuits, and Generation Cir- cuits, our students had the opportunity to see boards being manufactured and assembled. I ended up with two semester-long classes, including beginning and advanced PCB design. We met twice a week for three hours a night. That's about 96 hours of class time per semes- ter and about 3x that in non-paid time prepar- ing for classes, grading papers, etc., all while holding down a 40-hour-a-week day job. Matties: What's the status of the class now? Brooks: Currently, they're looking for a new in- structor. They approached me again recently, but I told them I'm just too busy. I can't do it right now. I'm a full-time designer at Nord- son ASYMTEK, but I have other activities too. I teach art once a week, and I sculpt and paint. I am also an active photographer. Shaughnessy: Plus, I imagine that colleges have their own hoops for you to jump through, right? Brooks: Sure. They used to have a lot more vo- cational classes at the college, but the depart- ment chair cut most of them; they went back to almost pure academics. I think they kept the woodshop because it was fully funded from outside of the college. You had to have at least 20–21 students for a 25-seat class to keep it open because of the way funding comes from the state. They are funded by how many stu- dents are occupying classroom seats. You must have them full, or they cancel the class for that semester. Matties: That's the problem. I just did an inter- view with a company here in the U.K. who's looking to bring in designers, and they're hav- ing to hire people and set up their own curricu- lum in-house to train them because there's not a place where you can hire exciting designers. Brooks: Yes. And it's tough for the students or prospective employees to find a comprehensive book on PCB design and have them say, "This is going to teach you everything you need to know about PCB design, so get going." It real- ly doesn't exist. And even if it did, it's certain- ly not going to give them any common practi- cal design sense. I hate to admit it, but when I walked into this place in 2012, they were pay- ing exorbitant prices for their boards with very poor yields because they were assigning the EEs to make their own PC boards, and they didn't know much about board design or DFM or assembly. They said, "Well, it says on the vendor website they can do this, so that's what I'm going to use." They were having all kinds of PCB-related problems designing to the mini- mums, or the impossible. Nowadays, we typi- cally get it right the first time, every time. Dan Feinberg: You have a lot of kids now who want to get into high-tech and electronics, but they're saying, "I don't know if I want to go into Bill brings a sculpture to life.