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28 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2024 Interview by Andy Shaughnessy I-CONNECT007 As the IPC Design Compe- tition heads into its third year at IPC APEX EXPO, the con- test continues to grow. I asked IPC's design instructor Kris Moyer, and Patrick Crawford, manager of design standards, to discuss this year's event, how the competition has evolved, and why PCB designers should sign up now for this competi- tion. Andy Shaughnessy: Tell us about the preparations for the IPC Design Competition at IPC APEX EXPO 2024. Are there multiple heats again this year? Kris Moyer: Yes, we're running two heats again this year, and it's the same structure as in pre- vious years—a longer, more involved design in the preliminary heat, and a shorter, more lay- out-centric design in the finals. Patrick Crawford: Much shorter for the finals heat. You are looking at a four-and-a-half-hour challenge at IPC APEX EXPO vs. having 25 days to complete the preliminary design. This is the third year of the competition. Contestants said the first year's design was pretty simple, but last year's design was a more complex rigid-flex shaped like a hand. Is this year's design even more complex? Crawford: We're trying to find the mid- dle ground in complex- ity between the inaugural event and last year's event, especially for the preliminary heat. As I'm sure you can imag- ine, it's difficult to optimize for a challenge while consid- ering the diversity of experi- ence among competitors, and we saw this challenge play out last year. e preliminary design was too complicated for a few folks and too easy for others, and while this kind of differential may be inher- ent to our philosophy of "come one, come all," we certainly want to avoid it if possible. One option is to split the competition into tracks—expert, emerging engineer, hobbyist, etc.—or change up the structure entirely. But for 2024, we just want to make sure that anyone who registers has fun while building their designs. Moyer: As for the complexity of the finals design, it will be less complicated and easier to complete in-person at IPC APEX EXPO. is is all due to feedback on the time allotted to complete the design last year; none of the designers could finish, even though some of them came pretty close. There was some discussion about letting contestants use their own EDA tools in 2024 instead of requiring everyone to use Altium. What was the final word on that? Third Time's the Charm Kris Moyer