This is a soldering project I developed for CREOL’s summer camp.
I find that giving students projects to build that they feel an innate ownership over is a really powerful tool for teaching. By integrating a circuit and name badge they get to show off their work everywhere they go during the camp.
The design features plenty of LEDs for practice and covers how to solder capacitors, resistors, potentiometers, and integrated circuits. They have to understand placement of components and all the soldering is through hole.
The front of the badge is a section of silkscreen upon which students can write their name, and a ring of 20 LEDs that when powered create a circling light highlighting their name.
The circuit consists of a 555 timer outputting pulses which are fed to a decade counter. As the decade counter counts up different lights are turned on with each pulse. The speed of the pulses is determined via a potentiometer on the board.
I’ve attached below a bill of materials and the Gerber files through which you can manufacture your own!
Bill of Materials (per unit):
1x 10μF Alum Capacitor TH (10x13mm)
1x 20Ω Resistor TH (2.5×6.5mm)
20x 5MM LEDs
1x 3D Printed Battery Holder
1x Kraft Stand Up Pouch 5.5×7.9″
For those of y’all wondering about the circuit:
