Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1520492
REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2024 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE I I-CONNECT007 81 look closely at some of these designs, there are some folks who, in part of their design methodology, have chosen to ignore those rules. But as part of our judging, we're going to run a design rule checker against the original rules that I created, and we'll see how close they came. During judging, I'll be thinking, "Do you have any violations of these rules? Did you follow the best practice recommendations?" Is there anything else either of you would like to add? Moyer: The fact that we did this really complex board geometry shape this year is evidence of the level of skill of our competi- tors. We're really testing their skills. Even a beginner can lay out a flat rectangular board. You route from point A to point B in a nice X-Y grid. But here we're having to go around corners and over thin little strips of board to make it fit in this really complex geometry shape. I think that really shows a high level of skill among our competitors. You don't want it to be too easy or too hard. You want it to be challenging, fun, interesting. Moyer: We don't want to just give them a flat board shaped like a rectangle and say, "Here, lay out a motor driver. Lay out an ampli- fier." Instead, here's something cool, and again, like we said, something practical and almost whimsically fun. It's basically a white box with a lot of LEDs in the IPC logo that's going to dance to the music. A little whimsy, and a little fun. Will you get a manufacturer to build it so we can see what it would actually look like? Crawford: I don't think that we would actu- ally manufacture this. I don't think it would be manufacturable. Moyer: Right. We might lose that strip in the outside swoosh right before IPC. That little strip is so thin that if you tried to route it, it'll probably just snap off. So there wasn't really DFM in this case (laughs)? Crawford: No, this was definitely not. This was designed for whimsy. Well, it does seem like the two of you are having fun with the competition each year. Crawford: We enjoy it. Just wait until next year's design competition. It's going to be completely different than anything we've done before. We'll have more information in the upcoming months. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks for speaking with me. Moyer: Thank you, Michelle. S&T Patrick Crawford