Cherry Blossom for educators
If you teach electronics, you have probably been asked whether AI can design a board yet. Cherry Blossom is one way to show what that looks like today, from a written description to a checked board. This page is plain about what it offers a course and what it lacks.
Make a small teaching board I can build live in class: an ATmega328P with a 16 MHz crystal, USB-C for 5 V power, a reset button, a 6-pin ISP header and four LEDs on spare pins.
It works as a demonstration and as a tool for individual project work, where the goal is a working board rather than practice at manual layout. There is no free tier right now, because the Free plan is paused, and there is no education discount or classroom licence. Each account starts at $20 a month.
It is not built for running a class. There are no classroom or team-management features, no way to assign or collect work, no real-time multi-user editing, and each student would need their own paid account. For a course that teaches schematic capture and routing, KiCad is free and the better fit.
Where it can earn a place: a lecture on how AI design tools work and where they fall short, or a capstone where a student needs a board and the learning is elsewhere in the project.
Where it fits
- Instructors showing how an AI designs a board from start to finish.
- A lecture on how AI design tools work and where they fall short.
- Capstone students who need a board while the learning is elsewhere.
- Critique exercises where students fix an exported KiCad layout by hand.
Where it doesn’t
- Courses that teach schematic capture and routing by hand.
- Classes that need seats, assignments or shared projects.
- Departments that need a free tool or education pricing.
- Circuit simulation labs, since there is no simulation.
How it works
Describe a board
Type a simple board into the chat while the class watches. An AI agent writes it as tscircuit code and builds it.
Read what comes back
Walk through the schematic, PCB layout, 3D view and BOM together.
Talk about the checks
Show the verification gate on every AI edit and the DRC check before ordering. Then ask what those checks cannot catch.
Critique it by hand
Export the editable KiCad project and have students review and improve the layout in KiCad.
What do educators need from PCB design software?
Something every student can run, ideally without installs on lab machines.
A price the department or the students can carry, often free.
Tools to manage a class: seats, assignments, shared projects.
Room for students to do the design work the course is grading.
Cherry Blossom runs in the browser, so the first point is covered. It has no answer to the second or third today, and the fourth depends on what you are teaching.
How could Cherry Blossom be used in a course?
As a live demo. Describe a simple board in class and let students watch an AI agent write it as tscircuit code, build it, and produce a schematic, PCB layout, 3D view and BOM.
As a critique exercise. Export the board as an editable KiCad project and ask students to review and improve the layout by hand in KiCad.
As a discussion of checks. Show the verification gate, which checks every AI edit against manufacturing rules, and the DRC check before ordering, then ask what those checks cannot catch.
For project boards. A student who needs a board for a capstone can draft it here and order it through the PCBWay hand-off, paying PCBWay's own quote.
What should educators use instead, and when?
Showing how an AI designs a board end to end
What Cherry Blossom doesDescription to schematic, layout, BOM and fab files in the browser
Where to look insteadCovered here
Teaching manual layout
What Cherry Blossom doesRead-only viewers; changes go through the agent
Where to look insteadClass management, seats, assignments
What Cherry Blossom doesNo classroom or team-management features
Where to look insteadThe tools compared in PCB design software for students
Free for every student
What Cherry Blossom doesNo free tier and no education pricing
Where to look insteadCircuit simulation labs
What Cherry Blossom doesNo simulation
Where to look insteadCircuit simulation software
| What you need | What Cherry Blossom does | Where to look instead |
|---|---|---|
| Showing how an AI designs a board end to end | Description to schematic, layout, BOM and fab files in the browser | Covered here |
| Teaching manual layout | Read-only viewers; changes go through the agent | KiCad |
| Class management, seats, assignments | No classroom or team-management features | The tools compared in PCB design software for students |
| Free for every student | No free tier and no education pricing | Free PCB design software |
| Circuit simulation labs | No simulation | Circuit simulation software |
Our guide to PCB design software for students compares the tools most courses choose from.
What does Cherry Blossom cost for a class?
The Free plan is paused right now, so there is no free tier. There is no education discount or classroom licence, so each student or instructor needs their own plan. Pro is $20 a month with 4M AI credits and 600 AI actions a day. Ultra is $140 a month with 32M credits and the frontier models. Usage past the allowance is $5 per 1M credits, only if you turn it on. The AI is included, with no API key and no per-seat licence.
The honest limits. Cherry Blossom is an early beta. You change a board by asking the agent, not by dragging traces yourself, so fine manual layout happens after a KiCad export. It is not a circuit simulator, it has no real-time multi-user editing, and it is not built for high-speed or RF sign-off.
Questions
Cherry Blossom is a good fit for teaching about AI in PCB design, and a weak fit for teaching PCB layout itself. In class, you can describe a board and show students an AI agent writing it as tscircuit code, building it, and producing a schematic, PCB layout, 3D view and BOM, with a verification gate checking every edit against manufacturing rules. Students can then export the editable KiCad project and critique or improve it by hand. It has no classroom or team-management features, no way to assign or collect work, and no real-time multi-user editing. There is no free tier right now, because the Free plan is paused, and there is no education discount or classroom licence. Each account starts at $20 a month. For a course where students must learn schematic capture and routing, KiCad is free and the better core tool.
There is no free tier right now, because the Free plan is paused, and there is no education discount or classroom licence. Each account starts at $20 a month.
No. There are no classroom or team-management features. Each board belongs to one account, and there is no real-time multi-user editing.
Yes. A board exports as an editable KiCad project, Gerbers with drill files, a CSV BOM, pick-and-place, 3D models, SVG and PNG images, and open Circuit JSON.
Describe your board. See what comes back.
Schematic, layout and a verification gate, in the browser. Exports to Gerbers and KiCad.
