Clem Mayer Reverse Engineers Bradán Lane's ACK Board to Create the Rusty Kit

As a surprise to no one, when a maker wants to buy a product but cannot due to logistic reasons, they tend to make their own version of it. This scenario is why Clem Mayer created the Rusty Kit. In this element14 Presents video, Mayer reverse engineers an ACK board since it is unobtainable in his country.

We covered Bradán Lane's ACK board and programming course previously. In short, the small PCB contains 42 charlieplexed LEDs, a piezo buzzer, some GPIO pins, a CR2032 battery clip, and an ATtiny1616 microcontroller. All of the components are surface mounted.

Combined with the programming course, it covers various activities for learning how to build an AVR 8-bit microcontroller. Plus, like many of Lane's projects, it is aesthetically pleasing visually (AKA cute).

Mayer's desire for an ACK came from his interest in learning the Rust programmable language, which the ATtiny supports. However, the ACK board is unavailable for shipment outside the US. And, at the time of recording the video, Lane had yet to publish the schematics for ACK. So, Mayer fired up KiCad to begin a reverse engineering session.

In the video, you can watch as Mayer works through the programming course's source code and ACK!'s photographs to create a version of the board in KiCad. Mayer named this new design "Rusty" and went a few steps beyond feature parity. First, most of the board's components are through-hole. Next, the board is compatible with Arduino IDE (if you installed support for the MegaTiny Core).

Mayer even made an intentional mistake so students can practice adding bodge wires! (Note: The author assumes, of course, the error was intentional.)

One nice touch to this project is that Mayer took the extra step of contacting Lane before going down the reverse-engineering path. Kindly, Lane supported the idea. (And this request may have prompted Lane to release the schematic!)

If you'd like to see a much longer session, you can see the entire design process on Rusty Kit's element14 Presents project page. You can also download the design files to fabricate one of the PCBs there.