A Hackathon at UCSD

Red Pitaya recently held a hackathon at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). The event brought together  aspiring students to explore the company's cutting-edge technology. The hackathon, which was held in collaboration with Digi-Key, IEEE, PiB and EnVision Maker Space, aimed to provide participants with a platform to develop innovative projects using Red Pitaya's products. The company offered its latest hardware and software tools, including its flagship product, the Red Pitaya STEMlab, to the participants.

Students firstly needed to attend preparatory workshops, which introduced students to theoretical concepts and enabled them to practice. Students used Red Pitaya's best-selling STEMlab 125-14 boards for the duration of the event. In the second step, students attended the hackathon, which challenged them to show what they learned during the preparatory workshops.

 The event gave students the opportunity to acquire a wide range of electrical engineering knowledge and skills. This included:

• Utilizing Red Pitaya as a software-defined instrument to perform various measurements
• Generating and receiving arbitrary signals using Python and MATLAB
• Learning the fundamentals of FPGA programming
• Acquiring soldering skills by making infrared (IR) circuits for transmitting and receiving signals
• Practicing decoding and encoding signals using Morse code as a communication protocol
• Designing and developing graphical user interfaces to control projects
• Creating additional hardware to extend the project functionality

Overall, the event provided an immersive and hands-on learning experience that allowed students to apply theoretical concepts to a real-world scenario and gain practical skills that will be valuable in their future careers as electrical engineers.

We wanted to thank all students for joining this event and of course our trusted partners for co-creating and incredible learning experience.