Getting Started

Join #solder on Slack!

If you’re not already on the Hack Club Slack, get in here: https://hackclub.com/slack/ - join thousands of other technical teens, ask for help, and learn about the latest Solder updates!

When you finish your project, you’ll also need to post it in the [#solder-ships] channel. Join it and check out what others are making!

KiCad Quick Start

Complete beginner? No worries!

This tutorial aims to teach you how to design a printed circuit board (PCB for short) from scratch.

To design PCBs, we use KiCad! It’s free and open source. Download it here: https://www.kicad.org/download/

If you’re not able to download anything, EasyEDA is a web-based alternative.

After downloading KiCad:

Open up the app, and you will be presented with a small popup; click apply. And now you are presented with the main menu.

You first need to create a new project: Go to File > New Project and create it. It should look like this:

If it looks like that, congrats - you’ve just started your first PCB project!