Fritizing

Raster posted recently about Fritzing.

Fritzing Schematic Capture Program

It appears to be a specialized Schematic Capture and PCB layout program targeted at beginners. The program actually starts you off in a solder-less breadboard centric capture mode where you are literally placing components in the holes of a breadboard and running jumper wires between them.  This mode looks fantastic to me for the purpose of giving tutorials.

At the recent BarCampMilwaukee5 I gave an Arduino presentation where I found myself really wishing I had a macro focus web cam so I could show the actual wiring I was creating on an actual breadboard with an actual Arduino. This program would probably be faster, cleaner and no less instructive than the real thing.

For beginners I see that ability to have a breadboard jumper wire configuration automatically converted into a schematic and pcb layout rats nest could be huge to understanding and very empowering. It can also be a good introduction to the basic concepts running around the semi-professional programs so that the learning curve is not so high. I want to try this out on a beginner soon!