Build a board.
Win $1,000.

Standings.

The rules.

Who can enter

Anyone with a heypcb account, on any plan, including the free trial. There is nothing to buy, and paying does not change your odds.

What counts as an entry

A board you designed yourself, published to Circuit World during the challenge, with the entry box ticked in that publish dialog. One entry per person. If you enter a second board, the first one is withdrawn.

Original work

Circuit World boards can be forked, and that stays true. But a fork only counts as an entry if you add substantial design work of your own and say so in the summary. Republishing someone else's design as yours gets the entry removed.

Team

You don't have to build alone. Invite collaborators to your project from the editor's share menu, and ideate, contribute, and build the board together, live. Everyone who changes the board can be credited on its card under the name they choose, and the publisher decides who is. Whoever publishes it enters it.

Likes

One like per account per board. You cannot like your own board, or a board you are credited on as a collaborator. A like can be withdrawn, and the count always reflects the likes that exist.

Votes

Promote your board however you like: post it on social media, or send it to friends, classmates, and coworkers. What is not allowed is one person using several accounts, bots, or paid votes. Those likes are removed, and repeated or large-scale abuse removes the entry.

The deadline

Only likes cast before the deadline count. Every like is stored with the time it was cast, so nothing depends on a snapshot. Likes after the deadline still show on your card; they just do not count for the contest.

Ties

The board that entered the challenge first wins the tie. Republishing a board to fix something does not change its entry time.

The prize

One winner: $500 paid in cash and $500 in heypcb credit. The winner is also guaranteed an internship at heypcb, plus an interview for a founding engineer role. You must be legally able to accept a prize where you live, and any taxes are your responsibility. If we cannot reach the winner within 14 days of the announcement, the prize goes to the next board in the standings.

Withdrawing and removal

You can withdraw at any time by unticking the entry box, including after the deadline. We remove entries that are not the entrant's own work, that we would not host on our front page, or that were not designed in heypcb.

Changes

If a rule changes, the change is posted here with its date and never applies to entries already made. Where a rule does not cover a situation, heypcb decides, and that decision is final.September 29, 2026: an entry can credit the collaborators who built it, and a collaborator credited on an entry cannot like it, the same as its entrant. Crediting is the entrant's choice when they publish; a like a collaborator gave before being credited is withdrawn when the entry is updated to credit them.