Engineering student wins award for best printed circuit board design

By Mike Frontiero
VCU School of Education

A major electronic hardware and software design firm has awarded a VCU School of Engineering student an award for designing a complex printed circuit board that could be used to help measure and reduce noise patterns around airports.

Jonathan Andrews, an electrical engineering student currently working on his masters degree, received Mentor Graphics Corporation's 2003 Printed Circuit Board Technology Leadership Awards University scholarship. The scholarship, co-sponsored by Hewlett-Packard, is designed to promote innovation and excellence in education for printed circuit board designers at colleges and universities. Andrews was selected as the winner in the "University & Training Institutes" category for his data acquisition system design prototype entry. He will receive an academic scholarship of $2,000.

"Although the competition was really an afterthought as a I worked on this project, I learned a lot and was constantly amazed, as I worked more with the design tools, how I could simplify tasks I had previously struggled with," Andrews said. "I also learned that board layout is not a trivial task and that Mentor's Board Station Suite has all the tools necessary to tackle challenging board designs."

Contest entries were judged by a panel of industry experts and were evaluated based on the design description, challenges met, innovative design tool use, appearance and design complexity.

Andrews' entry was part of a senior design project he worked on last year that was sponsored by NASA. "This is a very aggressive design for an undergraduate student," said VCU electrical engineering professor Robert H. Klenke, Ph.D., who encouraged Andrews to enter the annual contest. "Andrews' design is twice as small as an existing system at NASA," said VCU electrical engineering professor Jerry H. Tucker, Ph.D., a former NASA Langley Research Center engineer who helped Andrews with his design.

Through its Higher Education Program, Mentor Graphics offers a way for more than 550 colleges and universities worldwide to acquire commercial design automation software for classroom instruction and academic research. This helps ensure that engineering graduates are proficient with state-of-the-art design tools and techniques.

"We congratulate Jonathan Andrews for his outstanding achievement," said Norm Reini a global business manager with Hewlett-Packard.