WSC Trade description in electronics

1. WSC Trade description in electronics History  Finland participated first time 1995 Lyon Not in St. Gallen 1997 Montreal 1999 Seuol 2001 St.Gallen 2003 Helsinki 2005 Finland WSC-expert Olavi Lähteinen, since 1999 Montreal Trade Manager since 2002

2. WSC Trade description in electronics The Technical Description consists of the following: • Section 1 – Technical/Competition Description (TD) • Section 2 – Project Design Criteria (PD) • Section 3 – Skill Management Procedures (SM) • Section 4 – Workshop Setup (WS) • Section 5 – Infrastructure List (IL) • Section 6 – Appendices Part (TD) includes the following sections in Electronics (defined for the WSC Helsinki: B/ Drawing/ 2 hours/ 10 points C/ Prototype/ 6 hours/ 30 points D/ Fault finding/ measurement/ 6 hours/ 30 points E/ Assembly project/ 6 hours/ 20 points

3. WSC Trade description in electronics The selection of the projects With the development of the branch being rapid, the projects of electronics are not selected until the start of the competition at the competition-site; projects that are tightly agreed upon too early tend to become obsolete very quickly. An appropriate number of prepared suggestions for projects are agreed on between the participating countries. The actual competition projects will then be selected from these proposals. This selection process significantly effects the contents of the final tasks.

4. WSC Trade description in electronicsMontreal 1999, Seoul 2001, St.Gallen 2003 • Assembly task, assembly according to the assembling instructions, to be completed in 6 hours (15 p) • 2. Drawing, drawing, interpretation of PCB parts layout and creation of circuit diagram based on this, to be completed in 2 hours ( 10 p.) • 3. Theory, 10 theoretical tasks related both to digital and analogue technology, to be completed in 2 hours (10 p.) • 4. Fault finding, 3 different fault finding tasks, each of them to be completed in 2 hours, 6 hours in all (20 p.) • 5. Prototype building and design, to be completed in 4 hours ( 20 p.) • 6. Testing and measuring task, building an equipment and testing its performance characteristic, to be completed in 4 hours (20 p.)

5. What problems do the present competition projects involve? Assembling - the projects are often similar to those of the previous years (1999 and 2001). The assembling project of St. Gallen seems to be unclear in terms of the description of the trade. - we only use old-fashioned components and the main emphasis of the assembling often lies on making of a circuit board only. Prototype and design -  design projects are often too simple, because only hardware is used -  the wire-wrap technique is out-of-date -  In design projects is no programming, although in the application of electronics that it is daily business these days - there is no circuit board design, there is only a layout interpretation which very seldom comes up in practical work nowadays .

6. What problems do the present competition projects involve? Theory - disconnecting theory from other work is against “the spirit of a skills competition” - the theory projects are too difficult for a “skills competition”, this is no “engineer competition” after all Measuring and testing - too much assembling is often involved into these projects and it is often difficult to carry out realistically the testing and measuring projects on a single circuit board. Common remarks -  the projects do not really measure creativity, because the solutions of many of the projects are foreseeable - the projects favour “repeating

7. An outline for new project areas in 2003 The main focus area in the future 2.1. Prototype design In this project a competitor creates a solution defined in the assignment to meet the properties in a given environment (embedded system). He/She first designs the necessary additional connections to a printed basic circuit and creates the necessary additionalprograms to carry out the functions. 2.2. Prototype assembly Based on their designs,the competitors assemble an actual prototype. The project involves working out the layout of the elaborated circuit diagram, putting it into practice and testing the device. How to make this device? Milling a complete protoboard would take too much time (perhaps not)???!

8. The implementation of the new trade description/specification Our proposal in St.Gallen to Helsinki 2005, trade description  Assembling, a more precise specification of the project and more major elements of mechanics! (6h) Prototype design and assembly (a programming-based embedded system) (8 h) Fault finding (4 h) Testing and measuring (4 h)

9. The implementation of the new trade description/specificationFinal TD in Helsinki 1. Assembly task of electronics, 6 hours, 20 points Projects should include assembly of PCB-boards that include conventional and surface mount components. Wiring and mechanical assembly will also be required. It is recommended that • 50% of the marks for assembly should be based on components • 25 % be based on wiring and • 25 % based on mechanical assembly. 2. Building proto equipment, 6 hours, 30 points Prototype building, which demands design skills of a competitor. He/she gets a device building problem to be solved in a determined processor environment (PIC). He/she has to show through solving the problem his/her skills of programming (C-language) and the so-called hardware skills. 3. Fault finding and use of measuring device , 6 hours, 30 points 4. Theory, 2 hours, 10 points 5. Drawing, 2 hours, 10 points

10. The implementation of the new trade description/specification Our proposal in Helsinki to Sizuoka 2007, trade description Assembling, OK Prototype design and assembly, new proposal The prototype board and PIC prosessor have to be connected to standard I/O-Bus. Only the I/O interface is defined and the competitors may choose the type of prosessor. The interfaces are defined so that no so.called intelligent circuits can be used for a task board. A recommendation for the way of assessment for the programming is created Fault finding (4 h), OK Testing and measuring (4 h), OK Drawing and Theory, new proposal The task be changed completely into circuit board design to enable theory being integrated into it. The designed circuit board will be milling on the competition site and it will be made into a device immediately. In this case the task can be part of assembly or as an alternative, an independent task itself.

11. The implementation of the new trade description/specificationFinal TD in Sizuoka • Assembly task of electronics, 4 hours, 18 points • 2. Product development and building of proto equipment, 7 hours, 31 points • (the share of circuit card layout is 10 points) • The second task relates to the so-called prototype building, which also demands design skills of a competitior. The task begins with a supplement of a partially designed circuit diagram. Maximum of time 3 hours. • Once this is completed, he/she starts the design of a circuit card corresponding to the circuit diagram, using the CAD program (Altium Design). Time: 2 hours. For this CAD-based design a competitor gains 10 points out of the task category. These parts of the task are carried out during the first day of competition. • During the competition, the circuit cards are made with the help of a proto milling machine (S62 of LPKF). On the third day of the competition, a competitor is given two hours to complete the final assembly.

12. The implementation of the new trade description/specificationFinal TD in Sizuoka 3. Proto equipment with embedded system (PIC 184520), 3 hours, 15 points Here a competitor is given a problem to be designed in a determined processor (PIC) environment, in the solving of which he/she has to make use of his/her command of programming skills (C-language). The programming is directed to a specific "hardware" environment that has to be activated. 4. Fault finding and repair, 4 hours, 18 points Testing and fault finding skills are assessed through two integrated tasks. In these tasks, the faults are, however, at the component level, not in the programming. The location of the fault has to be documented, too, and thus the fault finding method will be partioned. 5. Measuring and testing, 4 hours, 18 points This is a type of task in which a competitor has to focus on the creation of complex measuring problems. The task also includes rules that are necessary in implementation situations. A competitor also has to document the outcome of the measurement.

13. An outline for new project areas in 2009 Discussions in Japan concerning the development of the trade for Galgary There were many signs of alteration towards a good direction in Helsinki, but needs to change the description of electronics and problems involved in it still exist. Proto equipment is an example of the desire to keep the HW design as a separate task and leave the embedded systems as it is now: a pure SW task. It is necessary to combine these items to form one single task basing on embedded systems. Finland intends to propose an alteration to this for the WSC in Japan. As far as the fault finding and measuring are concerned it also seems to be quite unnecessary to keep them separated. They, too, could be combined to form one single task. An assessment of the social and communicative skills of the competitors should be incorporated in the structure of the WSC tasks. This could be facilitated by introducing pair work into the competitions.