XP and levels
What earns XP, what the numbers are, and the levels they add up to.
The one rule
Every real thing you do on the bench earns something, once. Running a circuit, building your own, passing a lesson Check, solving a friend's challenge and sharing your work all count. Doing the same thing again does not pay twice, and a few things have a daily limit, so XP always means work that happened.
In the lessons, a step the simulator decided is worth more than a step you ticked. Passing a pin, serial or probe checkpoint means the circuit really did the thing; ticking a box means you read a paragraph. The numbers say so.
On the bench
| What | XP | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Your first run of the day | 10 | once a day |
| A board you have never run before | 20 | once per board |
| A part family you have never used (the picker's groups) | 10 | once per family |
| A part you have never used | 5 | once per part, up to 25 a day |
| Running one of the built-in projects | 20 | once per project |
| Changing a circuit and running it | 30 | once per project, up to 90 a day |
| Solving a challenge a friend sent you | 50 | once per challenge, up to 150 a day |
| A friend solving a challenge you sent | 30 | once per friend |
| Somebody remixing your project | 15 | up to 60 a day |
| Sharing a circuit | 10 | once a day |
| Running a sweep, a frequency response or a SPICE deck | 10 | once a day |
| The first time you do each kind of thing | 25 | once |
In the lessons
| What | XP |
|---|---|
| A step the simulator checked | 25 |
| A step you ticked, or one with nothing to check | 10 |
| Finishing a lesson, on top of its steps | 40 |
| The first step you pass on any day | 15 |
| A lesson badge | 30 |
| An editor achievement | 20 |
| The daily challenge, on top of the step itself | 50 |
| The weekly goal, the first time you reach it | 60 |
| A course week ticked off by hand | 10 |
A boss step, the last lesson of a chapter, pays twice. The doubling is on the work itself, not on the day bonus: turning up is worth the same whichever lesson you turn up to.
Daily quests, badges and streak milestones pay XP too; they are in Streaks, quests and badges.
The levels
Early levels come fast and later ones take steady work. Going from level 1 to 2 takes 50 XP, and each level after that takes 30 more than the one before, until a level costs 600 XP; from level 20 on, every level costs the same. There are 100 levels.
| Level | Title | Starts at |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | Spark | 0 |
| 4 to 7 | Tinkerer | 240 |
| 8 to 12 | Solderer | 980 |
| 13 to 19 | Builder | 2,580 |
| 20 to 29 | Engineer | 6,080 |
| 30 and up | Architect | 12,080 |
Level 2 usually arrives on your very first Run. Every level up earns a streak freeze, and the emblem beside your name shows the level you are on.
Where to see it
The level chip and XP bar sit in the header of the site and the editor, and /progress shows your level, XP, streak, today's quests, your badges and the weekly league on one page.
Signed out
All of it works. Progress lives in this browser and merges into your account when you sign in, keeping the higher of every number. Everything you did signed out is checked again as it is merged, so it counts exactly once. Signed out, a reward moment carries a quiet line offering to keep it on an account.
The reward moment
A passed Check gets a drawn tick, an XP toast that names the level, code-drawn confetti and an optional synthesized chime. Other XP pops up as a small number where you earned it, and a line under the toast says what to do next. Confetti is saved for the big moments: a level up, a gold badge, all three quests. Asking your machine for less motion turns all of that into a still toast.