I did not immediately register for the course as I could not imaging it being of much interest. How wrong could I be!
I have used scope quite extensively, but these were the old-style vintage ones and getting them to trigger in my case was a matter of twiddling knobs until I got something useful displayed.
After the course I know how to set trigger points and much more. While I would like to have a scope similar to the one Peter uses it is out of my price range. What was very useful is that the course also covers the use of a PC/USB scope, and I have now purchased one and I am looking forward to playing with it.
The decoding of Serial (duplex), I2C communication was very interesting, and I now understand the use of those weird timing diagrams you find in the various spec sheets.
The scope experiment that are used are perfect to demonstrate the subject matter.
Even if you think you are proficient with a scope, I believe you will learn a lot from this excellent course.

Hi Peter,
Well is all started in March 2020 with the pandemic. A little history first. I have been teaching Electrical Engineering for over 30 years and when the pandemic hit we all had to leave campus and head home to zoom classes. Just then my lab technician sent out and email about free PCB classes. I haven’t done much PCB work in many years and thought it was about time to get back into it. Well I tried the “free course” and it was extremely rigorous and all 300 participants could choose what EDA tool to use (Altrium, Eagle, KiCad,etc…). I chose the KiCad section along with 147 participants learning KiCad. It was a major up hill climb but I was determined to complete it. The “free” course materials went over very general topics of the entire PCB process, which I was very grateful for and to learn from, but it was up to each participant to “master” their EDA tool.
I saw and went through every YouTube video I could find and learned the basics of KiCad but it still wasn’t enough to complete the “free” course. Then I ran across your book and it was a Godsend! I immediately jumped in and went all the way through the 3 projects. If it wasn’t for your book, I probably wouldn’t have completed the “free” course. Only 6 out of 147 participants in the KiCad section completed the course and received the final manufactured PCB. That was back in last September 2020.
I then went back to zooming my classes over the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters and when the Spring semester was completed, I decided to get back into the PCB swing of things and signed up for your course.
As an electrical engineer and an academic (34 years) I was amazed at the organization, thoroughness, attention to detail, and professional presentation your course was designed to be. It was an absolute pleasure working through all of the projects, each one increasing the both the level of complexity and the learning skills acquired. Getting the boards manufactured and sent back completely functional felt like a “feather in the cap for me!”
I am currently signing up for other Tech Explorations courses and can’t wait to dive in to them like the KiCad course.
Many, many thanks for keeping me sane and productive during the pandemic!
Dr. John J Helferty
Temple University
Electrical and Computing Engineering Department

Created on: May 23, 2021

This course is composed of dozens of bite sized projects for the ESP32 using MicroPython. Each project has an excellent header with links to a wealth of documentation about the concepts of the project. It’s one of the best collections of documentation resources I have seen for working with the ESP32. I highly recommend this course.

I had tried KiCad before, on my own, and didn’t end up using it – used Eagle instead. I wanted to try KiCad again but thought some instruction might be helpful. My first impression may have been that the course was slow moving, but after doing a significant part of it, I realize that Peter’s presentation was thorough with suitable repetition for retention. I am understanding the workflow, unlike my previous attempt at KiCad, and retaining the information well. Good examples for working through.