Platform Selection

For maximum employment, we use this simple absolute nightmare tool called Altium Designer.

Now, to download Altium Designer, start by getting your student license. You will have to use your uwaterloo.ca email to sign up for it.

https://www.altium.com/education/students

Select the ‘Enroll for Free’ button, or find a similar way to redeem your Altium Student License.

Once you’ve got your license, go ahead and download the software to your computer.

• https://www.altium.com/products/downloads

Some things to keep in mind:

• Altium Designer only works on Windows with a registered license.
• Altium Designer has co-designing plugins for synchronizing physical PCB specifications with software like SOLIDWORKS and Fusion 360. If your project were to require a mechanical component (or you would like to collaborate with a mechanical team member), this would be useful.
• Waterloo Reality Labs’ Altium 365 includes an custom component library, where members have pre-selected symbols and created custom footprints to match a common spec. You will be expected to create symbols to spec as well.

Either way, you will often be finding your own symbols and footprints online and translating them into software (as well as validating their accuracy yourself).

Downloading Altium Designer

Downloading step for Altium Designer.

Upon first boot, you might see something like this:

Altium Designer 24 homepage.

Go ahead and login to your Altium Student account.

Login prompt for Altium.

Next, select your Altium Designer Professional license.

License Management page.