Welcome to electrical! We build circuits, test them, and keep the magic smoke inside. Here’s some things to do before the first meeting:

Check out out Electrical System Diagram to understand what exactly we’re doing here

Wow, that was a ton of acronyms! Here are some common ones that you’ll see around UTAT.

OBC	On-Board Computer (the brains of the satellite)
RF	Radio Frequency (communications to and from the satellite from Earth)
PAY-ELEC	Payload Electronics (the electronics that support our payload, a hyperspectral camera)
EPS	Electrical Power System (how we power the satellite in space)
ADCS	Attitude Determination and Control System (pointing the satellite in the right direction)
GSE	Ground Support Equipment (letting us take care of the satellite while on the ground)
MCU	Microcontroller Unit (the chips on the circuit boards that do the thinking)
BMS	Battery Management System (makes sure our batteries don’t 💣💥)
MPPT	Maximum Power Point Tracking (a system to get the most power out of our solar panels)
FINCH	Field Imaging Nanosatellite for Crop residue Hyperspectral mapping (our mission, a lovely backronym)

You were probably assigned a project that has to do with Altium, so go check that page out to learn how to use it and some nifty tricks and tips.

Winter 24-25

For this session, the onboarding task is designing a PCB with a microcontroller! View the page:

Come here for guidance on using electrical’s tools, an introduction to archived and active projects, and to find the hidden memes.

Further Reading