Bringing an idea to life is always challenging. There are several angles to go off on when starting a new project, and electronics design is no different. Engineers and hobbyists tend to approach their projects very differently.
Hackster’s Board Designer Competition threw out a challenge to electrical engineers and enthusiasts to design an innovative, aesthetic, and functional printed circuit board (PCB). Sponsored by Nordic Semiconductor, Autodesk, and PCBWay, the contest ran from December 2024 to May 2025.
On May 23rd, seven winners were announced, each with different approaches to their projects. We contacted them to find out what motivated them and what made their project stand out.
Kitchen Sink Award: Juan Carlos Sanchez
The Xurave PocketQube Kit (XPK) is a modular development platform created for STEAM students to “explore and engage in space sciences.” It mirrors the design of the PocketQube miniaturized satellite used by universities for space research and exploration.
Juan Carlos Sanchez has been working on the kit for two years as part of an initiative to create low-cost educational materials for students in developing countries. He believes inexpensive, easy-to-use learning tools are crucial to promoting STEAM careers, and these tools will “play a key role in future technological revolutions such as space exploration.”
The Xurave Kit is built on a single breakaway-style PCB that can be separated and reassembled into a chassis for other electronic components. According to Sanchez, this reduces manufacturing costs and invites the user to interact with the electronics actively.
It is powered by the nRF54L15 chip and features a LoRa module for monitoring and data transmission in space. For testing and pre-launch operations, it has a dongle card with a Raspberry Pi microcontroller and a LoRa receiver.
It uses recycled batteries and 3.5mm plugs for the Electrical Power Subsystem (EPS). This is “to promote the idea of giving things one more use — to resist the relentless cycle of consumption, acquisition, and disposal.”
The Frankenboard Award: Rodney Trusty
Rodney Trusty’s e-textile glove uses flex and capacitive touch sensors to control LEDs, vibration, and sound. The glove employs textile flex sensors, washable and comfortable components made from conductive thread.
Trusty is a self-taught embedded engineer working in the defense sector. He is a big advocate of learning iteratively with side projects. He wrote a CAD program, Digital Fiber Studio, for creating e-textile circuits, and the Yendor Flex Glove was made to show what Digital Fiber Studio can do.
He says he approaches electronics design like a comic book writer, picturing something that doesn’t exist and bringing it into existence with whatever he has handy. He says this mindset keeps him growing and trying new things.
He has been a member of Hackster since 2020 and is impressed with the talent in the community. He quips, “If necessity is the mother of innovation, ‘just because’ is its father.”
E-textiles are still in the infant phase, and Trusty hopes to inspire others to experiment with e-textile circuits.
The Bling Bling Board: Arvind SA
Arvind SA is a big fan of the classic Connect Four board game and often plays with his friend, Sangeetha, at board game cafés.
He needed a way to play Connect Four with Sangeetha without going to a café, without losing the experience of playing in person. So, he designed On the Go Connect4, a portable, touch-sensitive board game that can be played anywhere, even in the dark.
On the Go Connect4 consists of a 7×7 RGB board with an ESP32 MCU and two touch controllers embedded in a pixel art frame. It uses the Pillars of Creation photograph, some LEDs, and a diffuser for a stunning, glowing star effect. It can display pixel art hosted on a remote server as well.
Arvind says he and Sangeetha have been playing a few board games, and they love it. He has been a member of the Hackster community for two years and appreciates the “willingness of the community to help and nurture others.”
Offering practical tips from experience, he advises PCB designers to keep their designs modular, print at full scale for footprint checks, and “be ready for some touch-ups.”
The Ultimate RestoMod: Jakob Krantz
Jakob Kranz found a new purpose for old equipment by upgrading his power supply with modern, easily-accessible outputs.
The retro Agilent 6626A power supply uses GPIB for control and programming, a legacy interface rare in modern equipment. Kranz discovered an open source Arduino-based controller for interfacing with IEEE488 GPIB devices over USB. Inspired by the project, he created a GPIB-to-UART adapter to send commands to the power supply and route the rear panel outputs to a new front panel.
This “modern control interface for an old power supply” has a pair of USB-C host connectors, a USB-A connector that routes power from the 6626A, a USB switch for changing hosts, and four LEDs to indicate active output terminals. It also adds a touch interface for sending GPIB commands to the power supply.
Kranz is an embedded software engineer who self-learnt hardware development, and likes browsing “cool projects” by the Hackster community. He uses his now-favorite power supply to power his open source projects like ZSWatch.
The Unofficial Open Hardware Summit Badge: Manzel Sleet
Most PCB manufacturers, including PCBWay, now offer direct full-color printing on boards. It is done with UV printers and offers more vibrant colors than traditional silk screen printing, making it great for wearable projects like badges.
Manzel Sleet — an electronics and hardware security enthusiast from Singapore — designed a full-color PCB badge with a name card display. Sleet’s badge has his name cut out from the board’s outline and set against a vibrant, retro background.
Board Designer Grand Prize: Arnov Sharma
Arnov Sharma is a mechanical engineer from India and a big fan of retro game emulation. His portable Snake game console won the grand prize for the Board Designer Competition.
The console is built on the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 with an RGB 64 x 32 matrix panel from Waveshare. It has four buttons for moving the pixelated snake around the display, and a 3.7V 2600mAh battery at the back of the device, which powers the Pico 2 and the matrix display. Writing the code for controlling the snake was by far the hardest part of the project, according to Sharma.
He discovered Hackster in 2017 while working on a project in college, and the community has helped him transform his free time into a “playground for innovation.”
He advises beginning PCB designers to learn 3D modeling software, regardless of their specialization. He also recommends an inquisitive approach to learning — taking apart “radios, toys, and machinery to understand how they function and what parts are used.”
The Murphy’s Law Survivor: Yoganandham
In his first job as an electronics engineer, Yoganandham found a sharp “disconnect between theoretical knowledge and practical implementation.” The Pi Hub Development Kit was created for his younger self, who was “eager to learn but intimidated by complex hardware setups.”
Pi Hub is a beginner-friendly platform to simplify sensor integration, support rapid prototyping, and help provide a learning pathway for young engineers.
Yoganandham hopes the integrated breadboard, plug-and-play design, Raspberry Pi interface, and Python support will help bridge “the gap between academic learning and industry expectations.
Becoming a Board Designer
The Board Designer Competition winners all emphasize the importance of learning, either through instruction or trial and error. Translating ideas to circuits and code is a complex process that requires careful planning and iteration.
Studying existing open hardware projects is a great way to learn electronic designs. You can start with the projects in the beginner category. Happy hacking!