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Are you using AI?

Alanta Lee

Hi everyone,

This is the first time i've ventured out of my 'Research Opportunities' area so, hello Wave

I'm curious to hear how people in the element14 community are using AI tools in everyday life, whether that’s at work, at home, while learning, or just experimenting.

A few prompts to get things going:

  • What do you mainly use AI for?
  • Has AI changed how you work or solve problems?
  • What do you find most useful about AI?
  • What still feels frustrating, risky, or unclear?
  • Are there any AI tools or use cases you think are especially useful?

Feel free to answer one question or all of them!

Thanks!

 

Parents

  • I started using Cursor in December 2024, then switched to Roo, and eventually landed on Claude Code. If I have a full day to focus, I'll burn through 300M tokens without thinking twice.

    These days, Claude has helped me complete several C/C++ MCU projects, design PCBs, select parts, and think through optimization strategies in areas where I had far less experience. It's been like having an expert collaborator, and I can feel how much my own skills have leveled up.

    More recently, Codex got a Vivado environment running on an unsupported Mac in just a few hours. I can now compile overlays for PYNQ, and all Verilogs are entirely written by Claude.

    The sky really is the limit. My biggest challenge now isn't tooling—it's being disciplined enough to challenge my own ideas. Nothing feels out of reach anymore. Almost everything seems achievable if I'm willing to put in the time. The real tradeoff is finding that time among everything else life demands.

  • in reply to ggabe

    How did Claude help you design PCBs? What did it do for you besides research automation etc.?

Reply Children
  • in reply to vadimv

    I used Claude alongside KiCad primarily as an engineering assistant for schematic design rather than PCB layout.

    It was especially useful for automating repetitive schematic tasks. For example, I could ask it to duplicate a level shifter stage around Q1 multiple times, saving me from a lot of manual editing. It also handled large-scale design updates, such as marking every 0402 resistor as DNP across the project.

    Beyond automation, I used it as a design reviewer. I'd have it inspect the schematics for potential issues like startup conditions, sanity-check enable signal sequencing, and suggest where pull-up or pull-down resistors might be needed on control signals. It was a good second set of eyes for catching things I'd want to verify.

    I didn't use Claude for PCB routing, though. Routing is the part of board design I genuinely enjoy—it's a creative process where I prefer to stay hands-on.