Some people started preparing for the national competition in junior high school! What would happen if we started learning electronics in junior high school?
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I saw a good article and thought of a question after reading it. If we insist on doing something we like since junior high school, what will happen now? For example, if we start learning electronics in junior high school, what will happen now? Welcome to post comments for discussion.
Let me share this article with you first. You can read it with the above questions.
"We must insist on making one board a day. Without a board, it's like we have lost our soul." This was posted by Yu Hao on his WeChat Moments on April 14, 2019.
More than 100 days later, when an electric car with a red flag appeared at the retest site of the 2019 National Undergraduate Electronic Design Competition (hereinafter referred to as the "National Competition"), it successfully attracted everyone's attention, not only because of its vintage decoration, but also because it far exceeded the performance of other competitors - running 62.2 laps (70cm diameter track) in the basic part and 73.5 laps in the performance part.
From left: Yu Hao, Hui Yujiao, Li Chengzhi and their supervisor, Associate Professor Deng Zhouhu
This car was created by the team of Yu Hao, Li Chengzhi and Hui Yujiao from Northwest University in homage to the 70th anniversary of the National Day. In the end, they lived up to their mission and won the coveted honor for college students majoring in electronics and related majors - the first prize in the national competition (hereinafter referred to as "National One"), which also enabled Northwest University to achieve a "zero" breakthrough in the National One. Northwest University, which excels in literature, history and philosophy, originated from Shaanxi University Hall established in 1902. It is the oldest and most prestigious university in Northwest China. As a comprehensive university, its award-winning results in the national competition have been far behind those of professional colleges for many years.
Successful teams are similar, nothing more than strong personal ability, tacit teamwork, and strong support from the school... But this red flag team that came out of nowhere was able to break through Northwest University, which did not have a strong foundation, because it had its own special story. Most national competition participants began their preparations in their freshman or sophomore year, but this group's preparations actually began when Yu Hao was in the second year of junior high school.
Encounter: The fate of electric sparks
Yu Hao, a 12-year-old boy from Putian, Fujian, was curious and took apart a used universal charger. The various colorful components on it immediately attracted him. He couldn't wait to know the functions and names of these components, so he asked his physics teacher for help and got a detailed answer. Not long after, he took out a large power frequency transformer from an older charger. When he rubbed the input end on the battery, he was surprised to see sparks at the output end. The flashing sparks were like gorgeous fireworks in his eyes, which struck him and made him fall in love with electronics.
Yu Hao's workbench at home
However, from the perspective of ordinary people, fiddling with these electronic designs that have little to do with learning is a bit of a waste of academic studies. Fortunately, he received strong support from his junior high school and high school physics teachers. Not only did they help him solve his doubts, but his junior high school physics teacher also gave him a set of welding tools and a multimeter. In order to get more devices, in addition to using his pocket money to buy devices and second-hand circuit boards on Taobao, Yu Hao would even go to the scrap collection station to find some scrap boards for component disassembly. At this time, he found that the power module starting with TPS had strong performance. The power amplifier module produced by this company called Texas Instruments has the advantages of high efficiency, high power, high signal-to-noise ratio, good tone, strong bass dive, and low static power consumption. At that time, Yu Hao certainly could not have imagined that this company would help him take a big step on his electronic road in the future. From junior high school to high school, many works were born in his hands: flashlights, small speakers, electromagnetic guns, wireless microphones, power banks, adjustable speed fans, light-controlled Guangzhou Tower, inverters, Tesla coils, wireless power transmission, induction heating... Even in his senior year of high school, he still didn't stop shopping, unpacking, and assembling things.
In September 2017, Yu Hao, who wanted to see the world in the north and see snow, was admitted to the Department of Electronic Science and Technology, School of Information Science and Technology, Northwest University
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In May 2019, when Northwest University organized students to participate in the national competition, Li Chengzhi, Yu Hao and Hui Yujiao came together, as if it was a natural thing. A month before the summer vacation of his freshman year, Li Chengzhi joined the school track and field team, where he met Yu Hao, who was in the same college and the same grade and also focused on 400 meters. At that time, Li Chengzhi found that this person was a little special. He would often bring things he made to the track and field, such as a fan when it was hot. When Li Chengzhi joined the power supply laboratory, he happened to be assigned to the same group with Yu Hao. He found that Yu Hao had received nearly a year of systematic training.
Northwest University provides full support for students to participate in competitions. The college is equipped with laboratories in different directions according to different competition directions, such as power supply, control, signal, aircraft, etc., to provide students with one-stop service. As soon as he entered the school, when most students were just about to "let themselves go", Yu Hao had already applied to join the laboratory and chose the power supply direction that he did the most and was most familiar with.
In close contact with Yu Hao, Li Chengzhi saw a "madman" - he often stayed up until 3 or 4 in the morning just to solder circuit boards. What's more amazing is that he could still get up as usual the next morning to attend class. Li Chengzhi believes that it can only be explained as the kind of crazy love for hardware to the point of forgetting to eat and sleep. Moreover, Yu Hao's learning method is a little different. "Normal students" usually learn theories first and then put them into practice. Yu Hao, on the other hand, is more likely to find some rules through his continuous practice, and then verify the rules obtained from previous practice through subsequent learning. Seniors jokingly call Yu Hao's learning method "wild way". But from the final result, Yu Hao's design ability is far ahead of his classmates of the same grade.
Compared to Yu Hao, Li Chengzhi took a traditional path that most students would experience. He started to learn MCU during the winter break of his freshman year, and he found that many things could be created with his own hands through MCU. Every time he made something he wanted, he would feel proud from the bottom of his heart, and then motivate himself to learn more.
Each laboratory member has a task list carefully planned by the school, from simple to complex. The instructor will release training tasks on a monthly basis, summarize the training results at the end, and arrange the next stage of tasks. This training will continue until a few months before the competition, after which the teachers will divide the students into groups for advanced teaching according to their specialties, such as refining the hardware group, software group, and paper group.
The friendship extended from the track and field team to the laboratory. In this way, during the competition, Yu Hao was responsible for hardware and welding, and Li Chengzhi was responsible for code editing. The two participated in many competitions together in the first semester of their sophomore year. However, facing the national competition, they needed a teammate who could take on the responsibility of writing reports, assisting in hardware design, and conducting testing. Hui Yujiao, a junior sister who was one grade lower than her, came to the laboratory in the first semester of her freshman year. As a member of the track and field team, she naturally followed the two senior brothers to learn, and became the best choice at this time.
Yu Hao Team
Among the three, Yu Hao became the default captain because he had been exposed to electronic design since junior high school, so he had a deeper understanding of the entire system, could coordinate the entire team well, and put forward reasonable suggestions. As soon as the team was formed, Yu Hao proposed the goal of winning the first prize in the province, which made Hui Yujiao, who had always admired this senior brother, doubt it, thinking that it was good enough to try her best. Li Chengzhi felt that the competition was very difficult because he had the experience of winning the second prize in the provincial competition with his senior students the previous year, and he did not have much hope for this year's competition. But what the two of them did not know was that Yu Hao's real goal was actually to be the first in the country, which was set at the beginning of 2018 based on his assessment of his own abilities and expectations in his heart. Before going to college, he had decided that he must participate in more competitions in college to make his life more fulfilling. So as soon as he entered the school, he quickly participated in various competitions, from college competitions to national competitions. After a series of competitions, he had a basic concept of what kind of level can get what kind of award.
However, the kind-hearted Hui Yujiao and Li Chengzhi did not feel comfortable expressing their doubts at the time, but just quietly carried out pre-match training. Because the national competition tests the team's combat capabilities more, the team has gone through many large and small projects before this, and has a high degree of tacit understanding. The month before the competition is the stage of intensive training. At this time, everyone needs to concentrate on completing the test questions of previous years, about one question a week, and the results should reach or even exceed the standards of the first national level in previous years.
Unlike previous competitions, this time TI has created a special training website for the National College Student Electronics Competition, and invited many teachers to explain the competition questions of previous years in detail. Yu Hao felt that he benefited a lot from the explanation of the power supply by Huang Genchun, a teacher at Wuhan University, and his problem-solving ideas became clearer.
Sprint: National Championship Dream Come True
The moment they got the topic, all three of them smiled because they saw the possibility of winning, although the topic surprised the team.
Along the way, they trained more based on power supply topics in previous years, but there was no pure power supply topic this year. Fortunately, the content of question A is very close to the power supply category. The team has used TI's processors more frequently before, and question A clearly states that all controllers must use TI's processors. Yu Hao immediately felt that "it's stable, the opportunity has come", and the next step is to concentrate all the previous accumulation in four days and three nights to release it.
When he was in college, Yu Hao accidentally learned from his senior that TI samples can be applied online. Compared with the high school years when he had to spend money to buy them, he felt like he had discovered a new world, so he quickly applied for the first batch of TI samples TPS63020 (buck-boost converter) in his life. Combined with the PCB drawing software Altium Designer that he was learning at the time, Yu Hao tried to make an evaluation board. The test results showed that the power efficiency was as high as 97%, which was almost the same as the parameters on the datasheet. Compared with the power modules with 80%-90% efficiency used before, this result is quite surprising. What is more important is that the combination of software tools and hardware, as well as the subsequent test evaluation, allows hands-on practice to be better combined with theory.
TI sample application has opened up a broader DIY space for Yu Hao. Even when his application limit is not enough, he will seek support from his classmates to apply on his behalf. Because TI devices cover a wide range, it is also the brand that Yu Hao uses the most and is most familiar with. When he encounters large and small competitions or designs later, the first thing he thinks of is TI devices. In the 2018 provincial competition, Yu Hao's team tried to use MSP430F149 as the main control, and applied for several TI-recommended power-related samples for performance testing. During the school computer festival, they used a lot of TI devices, which made the working energy efficiency and charging efficiency of the charging car very high. When preparing for the national competition, they also used MSP430 and MSP432 to do a lot of related projects. Since he has done so many things, when a circuit fails, Yu Hao can quickly determine where the fault lies. Replacing components, troubleshooting, and adjusting circuits have almost become conditioned reflexes.
Perhaps it is because good things take time, faced with the topics that the car team had done before, the team underestimated the difficulty of the project, resulting in a very slow system development phase. The entire system was not developed until the last day of the competition. Since it was impossible to debug the code when building the system, especially the joint debugging of the entire system, Li Chengzhi could only debug the work after the entire system was built, which was a few hours before the end of the competition, which really made everyone sweat. Throughout the competition, Yu Hao spent almost all his time on the hardware circuit, while Li Chengzhi was always debugging the tracking function of the car, and the coordination and communication between them relied on Hui Yujiao, which ultimately enabled the hardware and software to be perfectly combined.
After the work was submitted, the team felt good, but they were still a little nervous before the results came out, until the news of the award came.
Future: True Love
The final result made them feel a little regretful, because they were so close to the highest prize of the national competition, the "TI Cup".
During the retest in Shanghai, Hui Yujiao, a lively and cheerful girl from Shaanxi, walked around and asked teachers and classmates outside the competition venue. She knew that the performance of her group's work was much higher than that of other groups, which gave them the idea of impacting the "TI Cup".
In Yu Hao's eyes, his work has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that the circuit structure is simple, which can reduce the probability of failure, and the efficiency of wireless charging and the energy efficiency of the car are very good, which makes the number of laps of the car much higher than that of other teams. The regret is that when making the charging base, due to time constraints, the position of the coil is a little uneven, so the car is more susceptible to interference from ups and downs. In terms of tracking, because the control of the car was less trained before, the tracking algorithm became very clumsy, so the stability and fault tolerance in this regard are poor.
Li Chengzhi, who had doubts about getting the provincial first place at the beginning, was unwilling to give up now. Because during the comprehensive evaluation in Shanghai, he found that the question required tracking functions in both clockwise and counterclockwise directions. Because the team was anxious during the competition or did not review the questions clearly, they only considered tracking in the clockwise direction and ignored counterclockwise tracking. The final test results showed that the optimal design for question A ran more than 40 laps in both clockwise and counterclockwise directions, while his own design could run more than 70 laps clockwise and 10 laps counterclockwise. But in fact, adding a counterclockwise tracking function only requires adding a few lines of code and can be easily implemented in 5 minutes.
This five-minute regret may teach these three young people a lot. There are still many opportunities for them in the future. Yu Hao, Li Chengzhi and Hui Yujiao feel that since they have found this major so interesting and creative, they hope to continue their studies and become hardware engineers in the future, and stick to this path. Yu Hao also has another wish. Because TI has accompanied him at every moment of pursuing his electronic dream, he has a special feeling for TI, so he hopes to join the TI family after graduation and continue to do what he likes.
Yu Hao’s QQ and WeChat name is “Lonely Man”. In fact, he is a loner who is not lonely in his pursuit of electronics.
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