In Verilog Meetup, we use digital microphones and audio boards as peripherals for our FPGA boards. Those components come from AliExpress unsoldered, which makes it a good opportunity to teach soldering to beginners. The components are not expensive, just a couple of bucks each, so burning them is not tragic. Plus, you can get immediate feedback on the quality of your soldering: if a microphone or an audio output works, the soldering is good enough.

I have 15 45 audio boards and 10 40 microphones to solder, plus a couple of 10 FPGA boards with unsoldered headers. I also have two soldering stations (UPD: and two more soldering irons) and a complete set of accessories, including flux, lightening, microscope, etc. We can also use the equipment in the Hacker Dojo electronics lab.

We can arrange a two —or three-hour session for anybody interested in learning to solder those 25 105 components. We can also teach how to use the breadboard and do wire stripping. If the event is successful, we can repeat such an activity once a quarter.

Some details about the components and the setup to test them:

INMP441, an I2S microphone

I2S GY-PCM5102, for sound output.

This component requires soldering the header and putting solder bridges, see the discussion here:

A setup to test these components:

The soldering stations and the accessories: