While Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) engineers are crucial contributors to the work L3Harris does, FPGA engineering is not widely acknowledged by school curriculums in the UK. Senior FPGA Consultant, Philip Abbey, was recently inspired to try and lower the barrier to entry for FPGA skills. Co-authored alongside his 14-year-old son, Abbey developed a ScratchVHDL toolkit designed to help educate comprehensive students about FPGA. The toolkit combines the theory of digital logic design with practical aspects using interactive tools, offering exercises from basic logic gates through finite state machines. So far, Year 12 students within two local schools have trialled the toolkit with great success. Three more schools have since expressed an interest in exploring the toolkit further.

The difficulty is FPGA engineering is a complex discipline and not one widely acknowledged by school curriculums within the UK. Senior FPGA Consultant at L3Harris in Tewkesbury, Philip Abbey, was recently inspired to try and lower the barrier to entry for young people to get hands-on with FPGA skills and career paths.