Less than a week from now, I’ll travel halfway across the world from Mumbai for a 2 month, Whirlwind Tour of the US east coast. As usual, I’m taking this opportunity to spread some Open Source love the best way I can – by doing workshops at Maker Space’s along the coast.

If you want to get started with PCB design using KiCad, or CAD design using FreeCAD, check out my schedule and sign up for the workshops if I’m passing by your town. Here’s what I’ll be up to during my stay here in 2019.

• The very next day after arriving in New York city, I’ll do a day-long KiCad boot camp at NYC Resistor.
  • APR 14th, 2019, Sunday, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
    KiCad Boot Camp – (Open Source PCB Design Software), at NYC Resistor
• On 17th April, I’ll follow up with a short, introductory session on FreeCAD at NYC Resistor helping hackers get started with the basics of CAD design.
  • APR 17th, 2019, Wednesday, 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm
    FreeCAD – Getting Started, at NYC Resistor
• On 24th April, while in Pittsburgh, I’ll be hanging out on the Hackaday.io chat channel doing a Hack Chat – talking about KiCad and FreeCAD. The Hackaday Hack Chat is where all the hackers and makers hang out, and is a great place to discuss, ask, learn, show off, or generally spend time talking to others just like you from all around the world.
• Chicago is hosting KiCon 2019 – the first ever user-centric KiCad conference, and it is shaping up to be a great event. I will be talking, as well as doing a workshop, on using FreeCAD to quickly model components for use with KiCad’s 3D visualizer, and get started on basic mechanical design such as enclosures. The conference is on 26th and 27th April at mHub in Chicago. It’s still not too late to plan attending this amazing con, so grab your tickets and we hope to see you in Chicago.
• From Chicago, I’ll hop over to WyoLum HQ in Reston, just outside of Washington DC for a week long confab with Justin, Kevin and the rest of the WyoLum gang. We have a lot of catching up to do, with all of the various projects that we are simultaneously working on at present. Some of the current projects we are working on are ClockIoT, WyoStat and Braccioforte.
• After a short personal trip to Fort Lauderdale, I will be heading up to Orlando, doing another set of KiCad and FreeCAD workshops at the MakerFX Makerspace. I’ll do a super quick KiCad boot camp followed by an introduction to FreeCAD on 11th May.
  • May 11th, Saturday, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm
    KiCad Boot Camp – Learn To Design Your Own Circuit Boards, at MakerFX Makerspace.
  • May 11th, Saturday, 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm
    Getting Started with FreeCAD , at MakerFX Makerspace.
• After a quick stay over at Austin, I’ll be back in Pittsburgh and will stay there until the end of May. I’m trying to setup KiCad and FreeCAD workshops in Pittsburgh either at the Pitt MakerSpace or at HackPGH (or probably at both places). Stay tuned for announcements on dates for these events in Pittsburgh.

At WyoLum, we just love sharing our work, and our skills, among the hacker community and spreading some love for the amazing open source tools that we use everyday to get our job done.

If you’ve been waiting for an opportunity to learn KiCad to help design PCB’s or FreeCAD for CAD design, do support our enthusiasm for sharing by signing up for the workshops over the next two months. Looking forward to meeting an amazing bunch of hackers this summer. Drop by and say hi.