BenchPulse: Spatial AR PCB Soldering & Circuit Coach

BenchPulse: Hands-Free Spatial PCB Soldering & Circuit Coach for Snap SPECS — Planned with Devpost Learn plan-lens skill pack and built with Snap CLAD, SIK, UIKit, and LEAF in Lens Studio 5.22

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BenchPulse: Hands-Free Spatial PCB Soldering & Circuit Coach for Snap SPECS

Built for the Learn AR with SPECS Hackathon on Devpost
Planned with: Devpost Learn Skill Pack (npx skills add challengepost/learn-specs --all -y → plan-lens skill)
Built & Tested with: Snap CLAD (ls-clad), Lens Studio 5.22 MCP, Spectacles Interaction Kit (SIK), Spectacles UI Kit (SpectaclesUIKit), and LEAF (Leaf.lspkg)

1. The One Spatial Moment & Why It Belongs on Glasses

When you are soldering a microcontroller breakout board at an electronics workbench, your right hand holds a 350°C soldering iron and your left hand feeds 0.6 mm solder wire. Looking away at a laptop schematic or tapping a phone screen with flux-covered fingers breaks your eye-hand alignment on sub-millimeter pads and risks bridging pins or overheating components.

BenchPulse turns Snap SPECS into a hands-free spatial electronics bench coach that combines all three core strengths of AR glasses:

  1. Shares your view: Locks onto the workbench PCB in your downward gaze (12° below eye level, z = -85 cm) and tracks which joint you are soldering.
  2. Draws in the world: Places a glowing 3.6 cm spatial target ring directly over the active PCB pad (C1 +3.3V, U1-P8 GND, J2-P1 I2C_SDA, J2-P2 I2C_SCL) and anchors thebench multimeter station 35° to your right (x = +48 cm).
  3. Leaves your body free: Hands stay on the soldering iron and wire; when a joint is finished, a single forgiving pinch on a large 9 cm × 4.5 cm target (NextStepButton) collapses the completed joint into a quiet green check dot and moves the spatial ring to the next pad.

2. Four AR Design Habits Applied

AR Design Habit How BenchPulse Implements It in Lens Studio
1. Put information on the thing it's about (Not a floating website) Pin polarity (+3.3V, GND, I2C_SDA, I2C_SCL) and the 3.5s thermal ring sit 1.5 cm directly above the corresponding 3D pad on BenchPcbRoot (z = -85 cm, y = -20.5 cm).
2. Show it when needed, then get out of the way Unvisited pads stay hidden or show as quiet dots; completed pads shrink to 0.35× green dots. The continuity short alert (FaultPopupRoot) and edge arrow (WayfinderArrow) are completely hidden until a short occurs (Rule G3: disabled at the tail of frame.onInitialized).
3. A few big targets — Pinch is the new tap Every SIK/UIKit Button is 8.5 cm × 4.5 cm to 15.0 cm × 4.5 cm at 85–90 cm distance (exceeding Snap's 4–6 cm minimum target guideline) and placed at low-arm desk height (y = -8 to -12 cm) to prevent arm fatigue.
4. Keep it inside the narrow 37° × 32° FOV & design for additive display Main task elements fit inside a 34 cm × 24 cm envelope at z = -85 to -90 cm (well within SPECS' 41 cm × 59 cm usable FOV at 85 cm). Because black renders as transparent on SPECS' additive optics, all typography uses high-luminance cyan (#4DF0FF), amber (#FFB830), emerald (#38F29B), and white (#F4FAFF) via applyTextRole().

3. Honest Preview Stand-Ins (logic proven vs. feel unproven)

Because Lens Studio's Interactive Preview runs on a laptop without physical SPECS glasses, live SnapML PCB fiducial recognition, or a physical Bluetooth multimeter, devpost/design-brief.md defines three explicit Stand-In buttons on BenchPulseDiagnosticsUI:

  • Found Board (LockBoardButton): Stand-in for camera fiducial lock. Snaps the 3D spatial overlay onto the PCB and activates Step 1 (C1 +3.3V).
  • Heat Pad 3.5s (HeatPadButton): Stand-in for soldering iron tip contact. Starts the 3.5-second thermal timer ring on the active pad and transitions TimerStatusText to "Heating: 350°C — Flow Ready".
  • Simulate Short (TriggerShortButton): Stand-in for a Bluetooth multimeter continuity bridge (0.2 Ω). Plays ContinuityAlert.wav, reveals the in-view WayfinderArrow pointing right toward MultimeterStationRoot (x = +48 cm), and opens the fault recovery card (AcknowledgeFaultButton).

4. Repository Structure

benchpulse-specs-ar/
├── BenchPulse.esproj                          # Lens Studio 5.22.0 SPECS project file
├── .mcp.json                                  # Lens Studio MCP endpoint config
├── .virtual-scene.json                        # CLAD VirtualScene two-phase hierarchy snapshot
├── devpost/
│   ├── design-brief.md                        # Approved design brief generated by plan-lens skill
│   ├── interview-transcript.md                # Full 8-question plan-lens interview & CLAD build log
│   └── leaf-test-report.md                    # Automated LEAF test suite execution report (5/5 PASSED)
├── skills/
│   └── plan-lens/                             # Devpost Learn skill pack (challengepost/learn-specs)
├── Assets/
│   ├── Scene.scene                            # Authored SPECS scene with Camera (World Tracking) & SIK
│   ├── Scripts/
│   │   ├── BenchPulseMain.ts                  # Main orchestrator (one-way data flow + Event<T> bus)
│   │   ├── BenchPulseCoachUI.ts               # Step Coach Card (SpectaclesUIKit BackPlate + FlexLayout)
│   │   ├── BenchPulseDiagnosticsUI.ts         # Stand-In Dock & Fault Popup (SpectaclesUIKit Frame)
│   │   └── BenchPulsePcbMesh.ts               # Procedural 3D PCB, PadRing_1..4, and WayfinderArrow
│   ├── Tests/
│   │   ├── LeafIndex.ts                       # @scenariosIndex registry for all 5 LEAF scenarios
│   │   ├── BenchPulseLeafInteractor.ts        # Custom DefaultLeafInteractor subclass
│   │   ├── BenchPulseBoardLockScenario.ts     # Done Criterion 1 test
│   │   ├── BenchPulseHeatTimerScenario.ts     # Done Criterion 2 test
│   │   ├── BenchPulseStepProgressionScenario.ts # Done Criterion 3 test
│   │   ├── BenchPulseContinuityFaultScenario.ts # Done Criterion 4 test
│   │   └── BenchPulseIKReachabilityScenario.ts  # Done Criterion 5 test (createIKInteractor)
│   ├── GeneratedSFX/                          # Spatial WAV audio cues generated by CLAD /build-sfx
│   └── Icons/                                 # High-contrast icons for additive optics
├── Packages/
│   ├── SpectaclesInteractionKit.lspkg         # Official Snap SIK package
│   └── SpectaclesUIKit.lspkg                  # Official Snap UIKit package
└── docs/
    └── index.html                             # Interactive 3D Web Preview Simulator of the Lens Studio preview

5. How to Run & Verify in Lens Studio 5.22+

  1. Open BenchPulse.esproj in Lens Studio 5.22 or later (Target Platform: Spectacles).
  2. In the Preview Panel, select Spectacles (Stereo) in Interactive Preview mode (WASD to walk, Q/E for height, right-drag to look down 12° at the workbench, left-click to pinch).
  3. Open the LEAF Panel (or run /specs-leaf-run-in-preview in Claude Code / Cursor with CLAD installed) to execute all 5 scenarios registered in Assets/Tests/LeafIndex.ts.

Built With

  • ar
  • clad
  • claude-code
  • leaf
  • lens-studio
  • snap-specs
  • spectacles-interaction-kit
  • spectacles-uikit
  • typescript
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