From a working breadboard to a printed circuit board: place the parts, route the copper on one or two layers, and meet the design rules before ordering. Then design a real one in KiCad or EasyEDA in the Capstone projects.
Each lesson works two ways. Students can work through the online tutorial at their own pace (it checks their answers and saves their progress in their browser), or you can teach it to the whole class from the slides, then send students into the tutorial for the Modify and Make steps.
Every lesson guide has plain-language notes, the answers to every check, a solution for every task, and slides and a worksheet for Waypoints Prepare. These guide pages are not linked from student pages, but they are not secret either: keep printed Teacher editions for answers you do not want students to find.
Whole-course cheat sheet: Open to print (every command, grouped by unit: a handout for the final challenge)
Placement, routing on two layers, and design rules for current.
A printed circuit board (PCB) replaces a breadboard's wires with copper traces on a board. A net is a set of pads that must be joined; the design tool shows the joins still to make as thin ratsnest lines.
Placement comes first: connectors at the edge, then parts in the order the signal flows, parts sharing nets close together, a gap between parts. Short ratsnest lines mean short, easy copper.
Routing draws the traces. Copper is bare, so two nets must never touch (a short circuit). Where nets must cross, one goes round or drops to the other layer; through-hole pads go right through the board, and a via takes a trace between layers anywhere else.
Design rules are limits checked before ordering: trace width for current (wider carries more), gaps between copper, room between pins. When rules meet, a trace may take a longer path. An order costs setup plus a price per board.
PCB, pad, net, ratsnest, placement, trace, layer, via, short circuit, design rule check (DRC), Gerbers (the files a board maker needs).
Cheat sheet: Open to print (A4, with board pictures) · Markdown