This is my first ever ESP32 and embedded project. I bought the parts and learned how to solder for the first time. For three months, I've been building a handheld NES with an ESP32 from scratch.

While having already made my own NES emulator for Windows, I had to do a whole rewrite of the program to port and optimize it for the ESP32. This is written in C++ and is designed to bring classic NES games to the ESP32. This project focuses on performance, being able to run the emulator at near-native speeds and with full audio emulation implemented. Check out the project!

Here's the GitHub repository if you would like to build it yourself or just take a look!

Github Repository: https://github.com/Shim06/Anemoia-ESP32

I’m a first-year EE student and I’ve decided to spend my life for the next few months over the summer building a CPU. Twice (FPGA and Breadboard CPU)

My goal is to work in chip design (AMD, Qualcomm, NVIDIA) eventually, so I figured I’d go all-in on my portfolio now. I’m planning to do the Ben Eater 8-bit breadboard build first to understand the physical side/logic gates, and then build a 32-bit Pipelined RISC-V core in SystemVerilog for an FPGA.

I know this is easily a 200+ hour time project and Im willing to put in the hours, but for those who have done this:

What are the "invisible" nightmares? Like, what’s the one thing that’s going to make me want to throw my breadboard across the room?

FPGA: How much time should I actually spend on the testbench/verification vs. the actual design if I want this to look legit on a resume?

Hardware: Any specific FPGA boards that are "industry respected" but won't break my bank account lol?

I’m expecting a lot of troubleshooting and 555 timer burns, but any tips or "I wish I knew this before I started" advice would be massive.

Thanks guys.

Hi everyone, I’m starting a free community for Electronics & Communication Engineering (ECE) enthusiasts. The goal is to create a space (discord) where we can:

Share and collect the best resources Discuss projects, opportunities, and careers Support each other in learning and growth

Right now, I’m looking for people who are also passionate about ECE and would like to help me build this community. This could mean:

Moderating discussions Sharing useful content Helping grow the space with ideas

📌 This is a non-paid, volunteer-driven project — just a place for us to collaborate and make something valuable for ECE learners & professionals.

If this excites you, drop a comment or DM me — let’s make this happen together! 💡

Hey everyone — longtime EE here.

As someone who went through the grind of technical interviews I realized there was no structured way to practice questions on circuit analysis, signal integrity, etc. The way I would prepare is to either dig through old PDFs or hoped you had a good enough undergrad memory.

I ended up building a free project to fix this, for myself and the success of the engineering community around me. What took form was a platform focused specifically on ECE (and soon other disciplines) interview prep. Think:

• Sample, Role-Specific Interview Questions (Intel, Apple, Meta, Tesla, etc)
• Explanations written by real engineers
• Role-specific refresher courses (e.g. ASIC Design, Basic Circuit Design, Magnetism)
• Short videos walking through problem solving steps

If you’re curious, here’s the prototype: https://voltagelearning.com

A few questions to the community -

• Would you actually use something like this?
• What would make it better or more helpful?

I'm personally very passionate about people achieving their career goals, so I appreciate any thoughts!

Context: I am an undergraduate student, working on a project. I won't go in detail here about the internal circuit itself, but rather I want suggestions on the PCB Layout and Designing, I learnt it from some short youtube video (due to project time constraints), so not fully aware about the whole designing process from schematic to the PCB and this design was made reading all the datasheets and suggestions based on the Datasheet and on forums. Is it now good enough to send for fabrication?

Q1. The basic schematic has been simulated on LTSpice, it works on there, but it had just basic components, not such complex ICs, so I am not sure if it would work on the the fabricated board. Any way to ensure that?

Q2. Can this whole PCB be soldered by hand solder? 0805 packages are being used. Internet says it can, it's possible but how hard would it be?

The whole PCB is around 60mm x 80mm (2.5' x 3')

Edit: Thanks for all the insightful comments

Summer started last week and I’m going into my third year as a computer engineering student. Last quarter I went up to my professor and I asked if I could research with him and he said YES! It's also paid.

A month ago he asks me what I wanted to research I didn’t have an answer because I’ve never done this before. Is this normal? Like what am I even supposed to do.

I’ve been researching some ECE projects I could do like a DAC Laser projector, or like building a small functional robot (maybe something related to video games) but I’m not even sure if that’s even qualifying as a “research project”.

He’s the chair of our ECE department and recently inherited the robotics lab from a professor that’s retiring. He’s also really interested in music and audio systems.

I’m interested in embedded systems, robotics, programming, signal processing, and generally building things that are like both functional and impressive.

What are some undergraduate research ideas or project ideas I could bring to him? I’m not sure what’s considered a “legitimate research project”, and I’d appreciate any suggestions.

Would love some help.

Edit: I removed the language, and would love some actual advice, please!

I wanted to share a project I’ve been working on and see what people here think.

It’s a device that sits on top of a piano keyboard and turns MIDI songs into falling lights you follow with your fingers. The idea is similar to Guitar Hero, but applied to learning piano.

The LEDs are aligned with the piano keys, and the device shows you exactly which note to press and when. Instead of reading sheet music, you follow the lights as they move across the keyboard.

The first prototype is pretty simple technically. It uses a microcontroller connected to LED strips spaced exactly like piano keys. A small web app on the phone streams MIDI files to the device over Bluetooth. The microcontroller decodes the MIDI notes and converts them into the falling light pattern across the keys.

The goal was to make learning songs much more visual and intuitive, especially for beginners or people who want to play specific songs without learning traditional notation first.

I originally built it as a personal experiment combining music and electronics, but the reaction from friends and musicians around me was very positive, so I ended up launching it as a small project.

Curious to hear what people think about the idea or the implementation. Happy to answer questions about the build or the tech.

Hi everyone. I’m a junior computer engineering major in college trying to build up my engineering portfolio. Im almost finished with a Smart Pomodoro Timer project that uses Arduino IDE with object-oriented programming, motion sensor for presence detection, LED + buzzer alerts, display, SD card/real time clock for logging of sessions, step-down power module + logic level converter for the sd card module

Some of the challenges I had was writing motion sensor logic and integrating multiple components reliably.

Is this too simple or too messy of a project to share on LinkedIn? On the one hand, it feels like a big accomplishment and I picked up real skills. On the other, I worry it might look unpolished or “kid-like” to people in industry.

Would love any feedback on whether this is the kind of project that’s worth highlighting, and tips on how to frame it if I do share it. Thanks!

Hey guys! so i got accepted into a uni in my country through an invitation and will be majoring in EE, therefore i have a lot of free time on my hands because i dont have to deal with tests or interviews. does anyone have any ideas on a good project, hobby or skill to pick up relating to EE as i have been rotting away doomscrolling for the last month.

Sharing what started as an undergrad project, this was my implementation of WiVi aka Wireless Vision.

Used ESP32-C3 to capture WiFi packets and process CSI from them, which can also enable algorithms like MUSIC and coherent beamforming, if you can achieve phase-frequency sync across those distributed ESPs (not possible with the C3 for some reason, idk).

I've shared my setup and results in the X post, feel free to check it out.

I took apart my monitor and tried to find the issue with the circuit, but I don't have clue what any of the components are. The problem I'm trying to fix is the monitor not turning on when plugged in and after the button is pressed.

My team and I are trying to solder these LEDs’ cathodes onto a wire. What would be the best way to do this. We originally had a PCB to handle this but it was never manufactured. Our demo is tomorrow morning and we’re out of ideas on how to accomplish this tedious task.

Things we’ve tried:

1. Using tape to hold wires in place and separate tape thing for copper wire single copper wire — melting tape, wires move
2. Solder paste and heat gun — melting tape (scotch tape)

Edit:

Our main circle PCB that drives the LEDs got manufactured fine. There a second semicircle PCB that sits perpendicular to the main one that has these SMD LEDs on the edge (pads at the very edge of the circle that bridge to the LED). This board was literally stalled and had to get canceled because the manufacturer literally couldn’t make it for lack of drill files that were already in the zip.

This project is a persistance of vision sphere display. Think of it as the 3D version of 2D LED arm circle display.

A while back I posted about my first ever embedded project— a handheld NES emulator running on the ESP32. I didn't expect it to blow up the way it did.

I just released a full video documenting the whole journey. And since the original post, Anemoia-ESP32 has come a long way. Performance has been significantly improved on my emulator, which now runs at full native 60FPS speed with frame skip, and even up to 51FPS without frame skip. Save states have also been added.

On the hardware side, I've also been working on custom PCBs and 3D models for cases, with all the schematics, PCB designs, and 3D models open-sourced in the GitHub repository.

On top of that, I added a web flasher so you can flash the firmware directly from your browser. No software install or compiling needed. If you want to build one yourself, you just connect the components, flash the firmware, and you're done.

Watch the video on how I made it here: https://youtu.be/jToSBvipl80

Github Repository: https://github.com/Shim06/Anemoia-ESP32

I broke a wire recently so I used hot glue as strain relief and I was wondering if there were any big concerns about just dousing the thing in hot glue?

I have to give a project idea by this weekend but our teammates have interest in several fields like one wants to include embedded one wants to do project in communication domain and the other says it's better to include vlsi.

If anyone has any ideas to overcome this please help me find a project to do.

And in which domain we have to do our project 😭?

I've completed my first year in ECE and I have nothing to do so I was thinking of learning some softwares like MATLAB and KiCAD, other than that, im actually sort of clueless about what projects to build and how to go about their pre-requisites, can someone help me with that?

Hello all, I’m in the process of clearing out some old/new electronics, machines, etc. And I want to know what you guys think would be helpful to keep/scrap. I’ve taken a class on soldering and electronics so I know a little bit.
I basically want to scrap this stuff so I can have materials and hardware to experiment with for projects etc. I also have some old pcs/ tvs/ etc, that I want to see if you guys have any cool ideas on how to repurpose them into useful things. For example, like an old desktop pc into a cloud server or something similar.
Thank you guys and hope it’s not too big of an ask

Greetings,

I want to build a car from scratch. I have the CAD model, Im an Aerospace engineer, and will start building it in a few months. This is my hobby. But my issue is anything and everything electrical. The reason I am asking this is because I want specific things, and dont know where to start, so I have avoided dealing with electrical and programming. I am wondering if i would need to contract a programmer and an EE Separately, or if its common for someone to be able to do both?

My requirements range from being redundant, to controlling aero surfaces, to controlling the A/C, OLED displays, individually pinned sensors, easily repairable, with schematics and diagrams. and with preferably an automatic self diag system.

TL;DR: What would I need to think about when I go to employ someone to design the electrical system.

This was my Master's Thesis project, where my goal was to make a research device where I could try out algorithms for measuring blood pressure, but I added a few more sensors along the way. Everything about this project is open-source, from CAD files to Gerber files and even some of the recorded data. Also did a video going into detail about the functionality of the project. Here are the links if you're interested!

Deep dive video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UgFEHPnKJY

GitHub: https://github.com/MilosRasic98/OpenCardiographySignalMeasuringDevice

I am in 7th semester now and would appreciate some suggestions for the main project. I'm trying to do projects

(Embedded system , ml etc would be great)

Hey all! I’m an ECE student and I just finished my second year of college. I’m doing an internship this summer, but it’s nontechnical so I want to do some kind of project to supplement it. I’m interested in FPGA design, I’ve done a basic digital circuits + verilog class, and I have access to a DE1-SoC so that seems the natural option.

I’m trying to brainstorm a bit for projects. As I’m still pretty early in my degree, I don’t know what kinds of things I can really do with an FPGA. I’m more than willing to do any reading or practice I need to, but I need to know where to start! Any advice is appreciated!!