What is the main goal for this project?

Our company is developing wireless charging stations for all manner of electric vehicles. At this point, the core electronics have been designed and tested. However, as we are still in the prototyping and lab testing stage, the stations presently lack an accessible user interface to display their status and other important info. We would like a pair of students to design and program an adapter board to interface between a microcontroller and a small screen we have selected such that informative graphics can be presented to the end user.

What tasks will learners need to complete to achieve the project goal?

The first student will complete the hardware design, involving the following steps:

• Create a schematic diagram of all components required on the adapter board
• Select an appropriate part to use for each component in the schematic
• Gather the “footprints” for each selected part and create a layout for the PCB
• Choose a manufacturer and send the board design to them for fabrication and assembly
• Work with the second student to integrate the fabricated adapter board into their setup
• [Bonus] Include an ambient light sensor on the board so the screen’s backlight brightness can be automatically adjusted

Final deliverables will include the aforementioned schematic and PCB layout, as well as the fabricated and assembled adapter board (received from the selected manufacturer).

The other student will write firmware for the microcontroller, enabling it to display simple graphics on the screen; this will involve the following steps:

• Select an appropriate microcontroller (and associated development board) to use
• Set up a project in the chosen development environment and configure the toolchain
• Find a basic graphics library compatible with the microcontroller and learn how it works
• Work with the first student to integrate the fabricated adapter board into the setup
• Write and test code to display various graphics (QR codes, etc.) on the screen
• [Bonus] Produce custom graphics to display on the screen (perhaps as a screensaver or a transition animation)

Final deliverables will include the aforementioned code (which utilizes the selected graphics library) and comprehensive documentation thereof.

How will you support learners in completing the project?

We recognize that engineering work is challenging – especially so for those without much prior experience with it. While we have chosen the scope of this project carefully to avoid overburdening the students, we understand that they will still need plenty of support throughout the process. As such, we are prepared to provide mentorship and guidance to the students over the duration of the project in the form of regular check-in meetings. Towards the end of each major milestone, we will also have design review meetings to provide the students with constructive feedback on their work, which gives them the opportunity to make modifications or correct any mistakes before the next stage of the project begins.